The painting materials in a work of the Futurist artist Giacomo Balla

The 1915 Giacomo Balla painting Grido dimostrazione in piazza del Quirinale has been studied in detail to investigate the artist's materials. Radiographic analysis revealed the presence of a previous work underneath and thus the existence of a complex stratification of paint layers that make the data interpretation both complex and interesting. Pigments and binders have been identified in an attempt to find correlations with the composition of common commercial paint products available in the first decades of the 20th century. A representative stratigraphy from a complex area of the painting revealed important information about the technical execution of the painting executed on top of the original. This study is intended to increase the knowledge of the painting materials used by Balla and other Futurist artists.