Bicycle, the merging of the landscape

Mediums: oil, cardboard.
Location: private collection.

The canvas belongs to the series of paintings “Mechanical Idol”, on which the artist worked until 1930. The theme of the bicycle as a symbol of mechanical movement was characteristic of many representatives of Futurism who tried to reveal the essence of speed and methods of its depiction with the help of this ordinary object. Phillia’s task in this work was to show the speed of a person on a bicycle through his interaction with the surrounding reality. He achieves this by decomposing the landscape into separate segments, which, like rays, diverge from a fast-riding cyclist. The perspective is distorted, creating a feeling of active interaction and interpenetration.