Blue sky thinking…
When the Italian futurist Tullio Crali created this 1932 vision of ebullient blue, Tricolour Wings, in his early 20s, flight had made him high in both senses. His mind was blown by the consciousness-altering potential of taking to the skies and seeing the world from new perspectives.
Flying high…
The thrill of the “surge of take-off” that Crali experienced during his first flight, or “baptism” as he dubbed it, in 1928, is conveyed here in the semi-abstracted angular forms of the rising plane. Land, sea, sky and plane are fragmented and there’s a suggestion of a human profile. Meanwhile, the wing’s insignia multiply like so many awestruck eyes. Crali recalled seeing his first seaplane on water, aged eight, and this painting captures a feeling of youthful wonder. The palette is lushly sunny, the mood triumphant.
Between heaven and hell…
Yet when the artist became hooked on futurism’s subgenre, aeropittura (air pictures), aeroplanes were no longer spotless bastions of modern life. They had rained down hell during the first world war and were a passion of Mussolini – one Crali’s painting appears to readily play into, with its focus on the tricolori. By the end of the 1930s, Crali and his peers were accompanying Italian fighter pilots on missions. His works’ pleasures are far from uncomplicated.
Above it all…
Futurism’s fascist leader FT Marinetti passed the art movement’s torch to Crali, who stuck to its principles of technological progress – though abandoned its politics – for the rest of his life. His interests diverged to include “cosmic” visions of alien landscapes that coincided with the space race, and even such utterly earthbound and slow subject matter as rock formations. Flight remained his first love, however, and later great works conjure helter-skelter visions from the heavens.
Tullio Crali: A Futurist Life, The Estorick Collection, N1, to 30 August
