Benedetta Cappa facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Benedetta Cappa
Cappa and Marinetti, 18 March 1937
Born	14 August 1897 Rome, Italy
Died	15 May 1977(1977-05-15) (aged 79) Venice, Italy
Other names	Cappa Marinetti, Benedetta
Occupation	Italian painter
Spouse(s)	Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Benedetta Cappa (born August 14, 1897 – died May 15, 1977) was an Italian artist known for her Futurist style. Her art has been shown in famous museums like the Walker Art Center and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She was an important part of the second wave of the Futurist art movement.

About Benedetta Cappa

Benedetta was born in Rome, Italy. She was the second of five children. Her mother, Amalia Cappa, believed in the special meanings of letters and numbers. She gave her four sons names starting with 'A' and Benedetta's name started with 'B'. Her mother was a well-educated Protestant woman.

Benedetta's parents were strict but loving. Her father, Innocenzo Cappa, worked for the Ministry of Railways. He later became an officer in the Italian army. He died after returning from World War I. This was a very sad time for Benedetta. She felt a deep sense of loss. Her brothers, Alberto and Arturo, were a historian and a journalist. They were involved in the military and Italian politics. This connected the family to the Socialist Party and many Futurist thinkers.

The Cappa family was middle-class. Benedetta had the chance to get a good education. This helped her develop her strong interest in painting and writing. As a child, she wrote poetry and took lessons in painting and piano. She finished high school in Rome in 1914. During World War I, she helped with an after-school program for children who needed support.

Benedetta was very interested in how children learn. She explored the ideas of Maria Montessori. Montessori believed that learning happens best through sensory experiences. Benedetta's interest in touch and exploration continued. It later shaped her own Futurist ideas. She earned a degree in elementary education in 1917.

Around 1917, Benedetta's brothers were active with the Futurists. They were friends with the Futurist artist Růžena Zátková. This inspired Benedetta to stop teaching. She began to train as a painter in the studio of Giacomo Balla. Balla was an abstract artist who painted movement and light. Benedetta first copied his themes and style. She painted moving objects and their effects on their surroundings. Balla became a very important mentor and a lifelong friend to her.

In Balla's studio, Benedetta met many new artists, poets, and writers. In 1918, she met Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. He was a key figure in the Futurist movement. Their friendship began with shared intellectual interests. They started writing letters to each other in 1918. At first, their letters were formal and discussed Futurist ideas. By 1920, Marinetti was addressing her as B. Cappa Marinetti. Benedetta and Marinetti got married three years later.

Benedetta's Art and Impact

Benedetta Cappa was an artist active in Futurist groups. However, she felt that labels could be limiting. She initially did not want to be called a "Futurist." In a letter to F.T. Marinetti in 1918, she wrote, "I am too free and rebellious – I do not want to be restricted. I want only to be me."

Even though she was very independent, her important contributions were often overlooked. This was partly because Marinetti was so famous and outspoken. Benedetta's art included many different materials. She used pen, paper, paint, metal, and fabric. She also wrote poetry and stories. She signed her own name and spoke for herself. Only recently has she started to get the recognition she deserves.

In 1919, Cappa published a poetry collection called Psicologia di un Uomo. It used unusual word placement and visual experiments. Later, in 1924, she published Le Forze Umane: Romanzo Astratto con Sintesi Grafiche (Human Forces: Abstract Novel with Graphic Synthesis). This book had a similar but more developed structure. Two images from this novel show interesting ideas. Forze Femminili: Spirale di Dolcezza + Serpe di Fascino (Feminine Forces: Spiral of Sweetness + Serpent of Charm) has three curved lines. One line is a central axis for the other two. The second drawing, Forze Maschili: Armi e Piume (Masculine Forces: Weapons and Feathers), uses many straight lines and arcs. They are arranged in a complex way.

When Cappa's book Le Forze Umane came out, some Futurists questioned her loyalty to the movement. They thought her book seemed more like another art style called Neo-Plasticism. Many male Futurists wrote reviews about her book. Cappa collected all these reviews in her Librone, which is now at the Getty Research Institute. Some people believe that the reviews of her first book showed that many male Futurists were unwilling to accept a woman's work as part of Futurism.

The idea of the machine age was very important in Futurist art. It often appeared in Cappa’s work. One early abstract painting is Velocità di Motoscafo (Velocity of a Motorboat), from 1923–24. It shows many features of Cappa’s painting style. It has clear, curved shapes painted with changing tones. These shapes are arranged to show objects in motion. The way "force lines" interact becomes the main subject. The artist continued to explore machines in Luci + Rumori di un Treno Notturno (Lights + Sounds of a Night Train), around 1924. She also explored this in Aeropittura (1925). After a trip to Latin America in 1926, she created a series of abstract paintings using gouache on paper.

As Cappa developed her art, her influence in the Futurist Movement grew. Between the end of World War I and the early 1930s, Futurism changed. This period is known as Second Wave Futurism. The early Futurist ideas, which were not very supportive of women, became less strong. This was because more women artists joined the movement. Other themes like technology, speed, and machines continued to be important. Because of this, Cappa’s oil painting Il Grande X (1931) is seen as a bridge between two eras. By then, the bold Futurist movement had become more established.

The Futurists became connected with the government. This led to one of Cappa’s most famous works. She created a series of murals for the Conference Room at the Palazzo delle Poste (Post Office Palace) in Palermo, Sicily. This building features art by several Futurist artists. The architect, Angiolo Mazzoni, designed the building. It includes tile mosaics by Luigi Colombo Filìa and Enrico Prampolini. Benedetta’s murals are also there. The shared themes of communication and bringing things together were key to the building's design.

Completed between 1933 and 1934, each painting shows a way of sending information. These include communication by land, sea, air, radio, telegraph, and telephone. The soft blue and green colors, along with the paint types (tempera and encaustic), were chosen to remind people of ancient Pompeian frescos. This collection of murals shows the ideal speed and efficiency of modern message delivery.

Exhibitions and Legacy

Cappa’s works were shown widely with other Italian Futurists. This happened during her life and after. Major exhibitions took place from 1926 until World War II began. She often participated in the Venice Biennale. She was the first woman to have a painting shown in a Biennale catalog. After the war, there was a long break until the 1980s. That's when Futurist works started to be appreciated again.

Some important exhibitions of her works include:

• 1926: 15th Venice Biennale
• 1930: 17th Venice Biennale
• 1932: 18th Venice Biennale
• 1934: 19th Venice Biennale
• 1936: 20th Venice Biennale
• 1998: La Futurista, Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (This was her first big solo show outside Italy.)
• 2014: Italian Futurism 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

The 1998 exhibition in Minneapolis was the first major international solo show of Cappa’s art. But the large Futurist exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York in 2014 brought her work the most attention. She was the most represented of the nine female artists in that show. It was one of the biggest exhibitions of Italian Futurism ever. It featured over 360 works by about 80 artists.

Benedetta’s five large mural paintings, Sintesi delle Comunicazioni (Synthesis of Communication) (1933-1934), were a highlight. They were shown for the first time outside Italy and were placed at the very end of the exhibition. These murals are her most famous works. They came from the muralism movement of the second wave of Futurism, which started in the early 1930s.

Futurist murals were special because they only showed images inspired by modern technology. The Futurists also wanted to create public murals. They listed many places they wished to decorate. These included train stations, post offices, schools, and even a seaplane base.

Despite their efforts, the Futurists received few public mural projects in the 1930s. One exception was three large murals for new Post and Telegraph offices. These were in La Spezia and Palermo. La Spezia was an important port and had military bases at the time.

Almost all of Benedetta’s surviving paintings were created within a fifteen-year period. The earliest ones date back to 1924. These include her well-known Treno nella Notte in Velocità (Speeding Train by Night). Also from this time is Velocità di Motoscafo (Speed of a Motorboat), which is considered her best abstract painting.

Besides her rich artistic legacy, Cappa often showed in her works a wish for women's contributions to help reduce conflict. She did this while still following the Futurists' ideas for change. Even within the male-dominated Futurist movement and her marriage to its founder, Cappa insisted that women should take direct action and participate. In her own words: "I believe that the feminine soul is at the dawn of her artistic expression...without copying the experiences of men."

Images for kids

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  Cappa and Marinetti, 18 March 1937

See also

In Spanish: Benedetta Cappa para niños