Carrà studied painting briefly at the Brera Academy in Milan, but he was largely self-taught. In 1909 he met the poet Filippo Marinetti and the artist Umberto Boccioni, who converted him to Futurism, an aesthetic movement that exalted patriotism, modern technology, dynamism, and speed. Carrà’s most famous painting, The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (1911), embodies Futurist ideals with its portrayal of dynamic action, power, and violence.

Futurism, Italian Futurismo, Russian Futurizm, early 20th-century artistic movement centred in Italy that emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life. During the second decade of the 20th century, the movement’s influence radiated outward across most of Europe, most significantly to the Russian avant-garde. The most-significant results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry.

The futurist art movement was founded in 1909 by the Italian poet, journalist, critic, and publisher Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944). It was the first expression of the avant-garde in the fields of art and literature and sought to overturn aesthetic traditions and conventions; to bridge the gap between art and life; and to institute a program of political, intellectual, and moral regeneration.

Boccioni was trained from 1898 to 1902 in the studio of the painter Giacomo Balla, where he learned to paint in the manner of the Pointillists. In 1907 he settled in Milan, where he gradually came under the influence of the poet Filippo Marinetti, who launched the Futurist movement, which glorified the dynamism of modern technology. Boccioni adapted Marinetti’s literary theories to the visual arts and became the leading theoretician of Futurist art. In 1910 he and other painters drew up and published the Technical Manifesto of the Futurist Painters, promoting the representation of the symbols of modern technology

Futurism had its official beginning with the publication of Marinetti’s “Manifeste de Futurisme” in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro (Feb. 20, 1909; see the Manifesto of Futurism). His ideas were quickly adopted in Italy, where the writers Aldo Palazzeschi, Corrado Govoni, and Ardengo Soffici were among his most important disciples.