Umberto Boccioni’s Elasticity, Italian Futurism and the Ether of Space

This chapter focuses on Umberto Boccioni’s 1913 painting Elasticity and his response to the ether in both its scientific and its occult contexts. The absence of translations of Boccioni’s 1914 book Pittura scultura futuriste, combined with the general lack of knowledge of early twentieth-century ether physics, has obscured this central theme of Boccioni’s art and theory. Boccioni’s treatise is, in fact, filled with references to contemporary science, including X-rays, Hertzian waves, electrons and ‘the electric theory of matter’. The latter reference suggests his specific awareness of Oliver Lodge, whose ideas and writings were well known in Italy—in both popular scientific and occult sources. Indeed, for futurists such as Boccioni, as for so many others in the early twentieth century, occultism (including spiritualism) and science seemed to be equally valid routes for exploring the unknown. Lodge’s writings about an elastic, energy-filled, matter-producing ether surely provided the stimulus for Boccioni’s Elasticity.