The City Rises

The City Rises
Italian: La città che sale
Artist	Umberto Boccioni
Year	1910 (1910)
Catalogue	79865
Medium	Oil on Canvas
Dimensions	199 cm × 301 cm (78 in × 119 in)
Location	Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Accession	507.1951

The City Rises (La città che sale) (1910) is an oil painting by the Italian painter Umberto Boccioni.^[1] It was his first major Futurist work.^[2]

Background

The original title of the

Subject

Buildings in construction in a suburb can be seen with chimneys in the upper part, but most of the space is occupied by men and horses, melted together in a dynamic effort.^[3] Boccioni thus emphasizes some of the most typical elements of futurism, the exaltation of human work and the importance of the modern town, built around modern necessities.^[4] The painting portrays the construction of a new city with developments and technology. Suburbs, and the urban environment in general, formed the basis of many of Boccioni's paintings, from the capture of the staccato sounds of construction in The Street-Pavers to the riot of sound and colour offered to the observer of street scenes, as typified by The Street Enters the House.

Provenance

In 1912, the picture was bought by the musician