Boccioni's Mother Crocheting,

1907

Throughout his short career, Boccioni frequently portrayed his mother, who worked as a seamstress. Just two years after Boccioni made this etching, his mentor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his manifesto for the Futurist movement, in which he denounced tradition and glorified action and violence. While Boccioni would later become one of the most well-known Futurist painters, his artistic training was firmly anchored in traditional genre scenes, such as this intimate view of his mother’s apartment in Milan. Boccioni’s bold variation of etched lines to describe different textures—including the wood paneling, the stained-glass window, and the cracked tile floor—creates lively abstract designs that anticipated his interest in deconstructing moving figures.