e chose a soccer player as his subject, and rather than painting him in the traditional sense, the subject is portrayed in a manner as to show movement and dynamism. Boccioni’s goal was to show the “dynamic sensation itself”, and not simply the “fixed moment in universal dynamism” (Apollonio 27). This is accomplished by painting the figure, especially his leg, numerous times, because “on account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves” (Apollonio 28). The soccer player appears to start out on the right side of the canvas, and then run into the depths of the upper left corner. This feeling is also created by the shapes and colors used. There appears to be a trail of light going into the upper left corner of the painting which gives the impression that the figure is feverishly running off. The triangular shapes surrounding the figure give the painting a cyclical feel, and also give the figure a sense of rapid movement. Boccioni wanted to create this feeling of speed and dynamism, for he believed in the Futurist idea of striding into the future, and not looking back into the past. The shapes within this work give it a Cubist quality, but it contains much more vibrant coloration and sense of movement.Boccioni created with vibrant and complemetary colors in Dynamism of a Soccer Player. The colors used for the figure and the surrounding areas of purples, blues, reds, greens, yellows, and oranges are appropriate for a painting celebrating the future and technology. They appear to be unnatural and coming from a modern unnatural source of light. In his manifesto, Boccioni delclares that “innate complemetariness” is an absolute necessity in painting and that “the time has passed for our sensations in painting to be whispered. We wish them in the future to sing and re-echo upon our canvases in deafening and triumphant flouri...
