Student Resource

Complex and simple movement coursework guide

Simple movement is complex to put down on paper or canvas. Explore how artists have been intrigued by human movement and by the speed and excitement of the movement of machines. Some artists have even gone on to make their own moving machines.

Human movements

Artists have thought of many ways to represent the movement of the body. High speed photography gave us our first chance to freeze frame movements, and led to more and more  realistic depictions of frozen movements. But how can you capture the sense - how it feels to be moving?

How far can you simplify a form and still see the moving figure?

Moving Machines

The Industrial Revolution gave European artists a new subject. Speed, explosions and travel all became important for artists trying to make sense of the changing world.

Can you capture a mechanical movement in photography? Rachel Whiteread photographed the demolition of high rise flats in 1990s London. Do they feel static or in movement?

Some artists take movement into the artwork itself

Further resources

  • Kinetic art

    Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects

  • Futurism

    Futurism was an Italian art movement of the early twentieth century that aimed to capture in art the dynamism and energy of the modern world

  • Futurism

    Tate Modern exhibition Futurism celebrates centenary of Futurist art movement with a ground-breaking exhibition 12 June – 20 September 2009

  • Vorticism

    The vorticists were a British avant-garde group formed in London in 1914 with the aim of creating art that expressed the dynamism of the modern world

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