States of Mind: The Farewells (recto); Study for Female Figure (Ines) (verso) 1911

Umberto Boccioni made this drawing, *States of Mind: The Farewells*, with graphite on paper, and it’s like watching a thought take shape. It’s all about process, not product, you know? Look at the swirling lines, how they capture a sense of movement and emotion, like a visual echo of farewells. There’s a real physicality to it, even in its monochromatic simplicity. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the paper, urgently trying to capture the fleeting feeling of a goodbye. The graphite is applied in layers, building up to darker areas that suggest depth and volume. The looping marks in the upper right corner almost look like figures caught in an embrace. Boccioni was really interested in how Futurism could capture the energy of modern life, and you see that here. It’s like he’s trying to show us not just what a farewell looks like, but what it *feels* like. I think you can see some echoes of this in the work of Gerhard Richter – who was also interested in ideas around abstraction and figuration, and how these ways of seeing might reflect different states of mind.