Art Gallery

American Progress

Painting entitled American Progress, by John Gast, depicting Manifest Destiny (the religious belief that the United States should expand from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in the name of God). In 1872 artist John Gast painted a popular scene of people moving west that captured the view of Americans at the time. Called Spirit of the Frontier and widely distributed as an engraving portrayed settlers moving west, guided and protected by a goddess-like figure and aided by technology (railways, telegraphs), driving Native Americans and bison into obscurity. It is also important to note that angel is bringing the light as witnessed on the eastern side of the painting as she travels towards the darkened west. USA, circa 1872. (Photo by Fotosearch/Getty Images)

© 2010 Getty Images

Krakatoa Erupts

27th May 1883: Clouds pouring from the volcano on Krakatoa (aka Krakatau or Rakata) in south western Indonesia during the early stages of the eruption which eventually destroyed most of the island. Royal Society Report on Krakatoa Eruption - pub. 1888 Lithograph - Parker & Coward (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Riot in the Galleria (1910), Umberto Boccioni

Umberto Boccioni settled in Milan where he was attracted by the new technological spirit that animated the city, and where he met the founders of the Futurist movement, the men who signed its first Manifesto as early as 1909. He promptly joined the movement, becoming perhaps its main interpreter and theorist.
In Riot in the Gallery, executed in the months immediately after his signature of the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting (1910), he utilized - and took to an extreme - the Divisionist technique to study the movements of the crowd and to create unprecedented effects of light and dynamism, accentuated by the use of extremely bright complementary colours

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