Ferruccio Busoni 1916

Umberto Boccioni rendered Ferruccio Busoni with these vibrant strokes of oil paint, like he's trying to catch the guy mid-thought. Imagine Boccioni, squinting at Busoni, trying to pin down not just what he looks like, but how he *feels*—that's what painting is all about, right? The blues and greens swirling around Busoni almost feel like a halo, but then he's wearing this jacket of earthy browns and reds; he’s weighted down somehow. I wonder if Busoni was even still for a second or if Boccioni just grabbed a feeling, a sense of him from the air. There’s this back and forth always happening between what we see, what we think we know, and then what the painting tells us. The best painters throw it all into the mix, hoping for some spark, some truth. It's like they're saying, "Hey, look at this person through my eyes, feel what I felt." That's the magic, isn't it? That's the conversation that keeps going across time.