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Why did Futurist painters use fragmented and intersecting planes?

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Umberto Boccioni: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space — Futurism *Unique Forms of Continuity in Space*, bronze sculpture by Umberto Boccioni, 1913; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Futurist painters adopted the Cubist technique of using fragmented and intersecting planes to visually represent the perception of movement, speed, and change—core tenets of the Futurist movement.1

By utilizing these intersecting surfaces and outlines, artists were able to depict several simultaneous views of an object. This approach allowed them to move beyond static representation and capture the dynamism of modern life, such as speeding automobiles, racing cyclists, or urban crowds.1

To further emphasize this sense of motion, the Futurists combined these planes with rhythmic spatial repetitions of an object’s outlines during transit, creating an effect similar to multiple photographic exposures of a moving subject. This technique was central to their goal of portraying the vitality and restlessness of the machine age, distinguishing their work from the still-life subjects typically favored by Cubists.1