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Benedetta Cappa (Italian, 1897-1977) - Synthesis of Radio Communications (1933-1934)

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Rhythms of Rock snd Sea 1929

Benedetta Cappa (1897-1977)

Italian Artist

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Benedetta Cappa (1897-1977) — Burning Peaks of Loneliness [oil on canvas, 1936]

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Benedetta Cappa, Synthesis of Aerial Communications, 1933-1934

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F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa

Benedetta Cappa (14 August 1897 – 15 May 1977) was an Italian futurist artist who has had retrospectives at the Walker Art Center and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Her work fits within the second phase of Italian Futurism.

Benedetta began to meet avant-garde artists, poets and writers who gathered in the studio. In 1918, she met Filippo Tommaso Marinetti at Casa Balla. Their friendship was first based on intellectual pursuits and they began exchanging letters in 1918. Initially, these are written with a certain formality on both parts and deal with Futurist ideas and a discussion of their literary works. By 1920 Marinetti is addressing his correspondence to B. Cappa Marinetti. Benedetta and Marinetti married three years later.

Though she was an artist active in Futurist circles, Benedetta felt labels were restrictive and initially rejected the designation. In a 1918 correspondence with F.T. Marinetti she writes, “I am too free and rebellious – I do not want to be restricted. I want only to be me.” Despite entering her marriage with such determined independence, the considerable contributions made by Benedetta are often overshadowed by the figure of Marinetti and the vociferous manner with which he directed the movement. Benedetta's body of work spanned a range of media that included pen, paper, paint, metal and textiles. She wrote poetry and prose, signed, and spoke as an individual, but only recently has she garnered independent recognition.

In 1919, Benedetta published Spicologia di 1 Uomo, a collection of poetry which incorporates “unusual word placement, typographic experimentation, and visual and auditory correspondences”. Subsequently published in 1924, Le Forze Umane: Romanzo Astratto con Sintesi Grafiche (Human Forces: Abstract Novel with Graphic Synthesis), has a similar structure presented in an extrapolated form. Two images from this novel provide an interesting conceptual contrast. The first, Forze Feminile: Spirale di Dolcezza + Serpe di Fascino (Feminine Forces: Spiral of Sweetness + Serpent of Charm) consists simply of three curved lines, one of which provides a central axis for the other two. The linear composition of the second drawing, Forze Maschili: Armi e Piume (Masculine Forces: Weapons and Feathers), has numerous straight lines and arcs arranged in an impenetrable tangle.

The action and aesthetic of the machine age is a trope within Futurism that appears frequently in Benedetta’s artwork. One early abstract painting, Velocità di Motoscafo, (Velocity of a Motorboat), (1923-24), contains many of the elements that would come to mark Benedetta’s painting style. Well defined, curvilinear shapes, painted in gradient tones are compositional arranged to imply objects in motion: “… the interplay of ‘force lines,’ become the subject”. The artist’s exploration of the machine continued with Luci + Rumori di un Treno Notturno, (Lights + Sounds of a Night Train), (ca. 1924) and with Aeropittura (1925). A trip to Latin America in 1926 was followed by a series of abstract paintings done in gouache on paper.

As Benedetta developed her artistic practice, her influence within the Futurist Movement expanded. Between the end of World War I and the early 1930’s, there was an ideological transformation which led to the period commonly known as Second Wave Futurism. The notably misogynistic tone of the foundation texts was largely muted as the number of female Futurists increaseD. Several other themes, such as Technology, Speed, and Mechanization carried over into this new incarnation of Futurism. For this reason, Benedetta’s oil painting Il Grande X (1931) is considered the culmination of one era and the prelude to another. In the two decades since F.T. Marinetti’s manifesto, the brash avant-garde movement had largely become the establishment.

It was the Futurists’ affiliation with the state establishment that would lead to one of Benedetta’s most recognizable paintings, her mural series for the Conference Room at the Palazzo delle Poste in Palermo, Sicily. The building is an amalgam of works by several Futurist artists. Designed by the Rationalist architect, Angiolo Mazzoni, the Poste Italiane houses tile wall mosaics by Luigi Colombo Filìa and Enrico Prampolini in addition to the murals by Benendetta. The shared themes of synthesis and communication are critical to the aesthetic program of the Futurist structure. Completed between 1933 and 1934, each painting depicts a form of information transfer, including terrestrial, maritime, aerial, radio, telegraphic and telephonic communication. The pale blue and green color palette, along with the use of tempera and encaustic media, were designed to invoke resonances with Pompeian frescos. The collection represents the idealized speed and efficiency of message delivery in the modern world.

Benedetta’s works were exhibited widely, along with the rest of the Italian Futurists, both during her lifetime and after, with major exhibitions as early as 1926 and up until the outbreak of World War II. She was a regular participant in the Venice Biennale, and was the first woman to have a painting reproduced in a Biennale catalog. A long pause ensued after the war, which lasted until the 1980s, when the works of the Futurists were, once again, starting to be appreciated.

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