Umberto Boccioni, “The Charge of the Lancers”, 1915, Collage, Tempera Paint, Cardboard, 50 x 32 cm, Private Collection
Umberto Boccioni was one of the lead artists in the Italian Futurist movement of the early 1900s. His most famous works are in bronze, where the energy of his forms are represented by a solid trail following a figure. In “The Charge of the Lancers”, Boccioni depicts a fierce cavalry trampling soldiers with bayonets. The forceful power of this image is an excellent visual representation of the ideas of the futurists.
The “Charge of the Lancers” is the only known work by Boccioni that is devoted exclusively to the theme of war. Being a collage, Charge was also a rare departure for the artist in terms of medium. In previous works, Boccioni had used the figure of the horse as a symbol for work, but in this collage the horse becomes a symbol of war and natural strength, since it appears to be overcoming a horde of German bayonets.
If, in fact, Boccioni was establishing the brute strength of the horse over man-made weapons, it would suggest a slight departure from the Futurist principles of Marinetti. This work also eerily prefigures Boccioni’s own death from having been trampled by a horse.
Futurism was founded by the writer Filipo Tommaso Marinetti, and was joined by a handful of young artists, including Umberto Boccioni at the forefront. Based on Marinetti’s radical manifesto of 1909, Futurism was an extremely fast paced and modern movement.