The Artist's Mother 1915

Umberto Boccioni made this portrait of his mother, probably with charcoal and maybe a little pastel, and it's like he’s thinking through her, not just looking at her. The marks are searching, angular, building up the form with a kind of restless energy. Look at the way the lines around her eyes and mouth are drawn, they’re not just describing wrinkles, they’re digging into the weight of her life, you know? And then there’s those two pink circles on her cheeks, like a sudden blush, which is so unexpected and sweet, but also kind of jarring. Boccioni was part of the Futurist movement, which was all about speed and change. But here, he’s slowing down, really looking. You see echoes of Cézanne in the way he breaks down the form into planes. It's like he’s asking, what does it mean to see, to remember, to feel? It’s not just a portrait, it’s a conversation with art history, and with his own heart.