Fly of Gabriele D'annunzio over Trieste 1915

Achille Beltrame made this drawing of a plane flying low over a city. It is all greys and browns, except for the red, white, and green streaks of the Italian flag. You can see one guy piloting, and the other leaning out, dropping leaflets. I can imagine Beltrame working at his drawing table, figuring out how to create the illusion of motion while remaining true to the visual facts. I wonder if he thinks about Futurism, or if he sees himself as part of that scene. I wonder if he’s ever been up in a plane? The drawing itself is so tight, so precise. Look at the city below, how ordered, and the soft shadows that soften the blocks. And then there are the explosions, bursts of white. But they’re also kind of beautiful! You could almost imagine them as flowers, and then the flag fluttering down, a ribbon of hope, like a gift. Maybe Beltrame is showing us that even in war, beauty can be found. In the end, making art is always a conversation, and artists have to keep working, even in difficult times.