Study for "Modern Idol" 1911

Umberto Boccioni made this drawing called "Study for Modern Idol" with a pencil on paper. It's small, a quick study. The hatching, those back-and-forth lines creating tone, they tell us something about Boccioni’s process. Look closely at the way he’s built up the shadows around the eyes and cheekbones. It's all about the accumulation of marks, a kind of searching, like he’s feeling his way around the form. The lines are scratchy, tentative, giving the face a sense of dynamism, like it’s about to shift or dissolve. The materiality is direct. Pencil on paper. No frills. The tooth of the paper grabs the graphite, leaving a slightly rough texture. This rawness emphasizes the fleeting nature of the image. It makes me think of other artists exploring the boundaries of representation, like maybe a Cy Twombly sketch or a quick Gerhard Richter portrait. Ultimately, it’s about process, an open-ended conversation across time, where the idol remains forever in flux.