A tour through the dazzling Futurist Gesamtkunstwerk that was Giacomo
Balla's home and creative laboratory
Recently opened to the public for the first time, the home of the
Futurist artist Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) is depicted and inventoried in
this extraordinary book. The apartment in Rome in which Balla lived with
his family for over 30 years was covered with lively murals, painted
furniture, decorated utensils and clothes, as well as preparatory
drawings, stage designs, toys and other works by the artist, together
with paintings by his two daughters Luce and Elica. The numerous
paintings by Balla kept in the apartment range from his early figurative
period to the Futurist aesthetics of the 1910s and '20s and a return to
representation in the latter part of his life. Together they create a
kaleidoscopic example of total design, reflecting the indissoluble link
between art and life that lay at the root of Futurist thinking.