Study for "The Dream – Paolo and Francesca" 1910

Umberto Boccioni made this study for "The Dream – Paolo and Francesca" with a pencil on paper; it’s all about the fluidity of line and form. You can almost feel his hand moving across the page, searching for the shape. I’m drawn to the way Boccioni uses the pencil – the varying pressure creates a sense of depth and shadow, even though it's just a simple sketch. The lines feel alive, like the hair is actually floating around the face. The face, obscured by the hand, becomes even more poignant. It reminds me of the way we try to hide our own emotions, but they always manage to seep through. You can see the paper itself, the tooth of it coming through in the drawing, which gives the image a feeling of immediacy. The sketch echoes the romanticism of artists like Rodin, but with a Futurist twist. Boccioni was always pushing boundaries, exploring how to capture movement and emotion in a static form. It's like he's saying that even a simple sketch can hold a whole world of feeling.