When I looked at the Palazzo dell’Arengario, which houses the Museo del Novecento, I thought that the exterior was an eyesore as it was punctuated by a Fascist style of architecture. It was intriguing, nonetheless. The two symmetrical buildings each had three tiers. Arcades made an appearance as well as did bas reliefs. Even though construction commenced in 1936, the palace was not completed until 1956. During World War II, bombs severely damaged the edifice. In the early years of the 21^st century, it was renovated. The museum opened in 2010. About 400 works by mostly Italian artists are on display in chronological order, decade-by-decade.

A spiral ramp takes the visitors to the first three floors. It may look like something out of science fiction, but I thought the ramp interrupted the space. I thought it was more of a hassle rather than a unique and innovative feature. In the Hirschhorn or Guggenheim, the ramp and the locations of the artwork complement each other. I felt that at the Museo del Novecento the ramp and pieces of art worked against each other, dividing rather than complementing.

The first painting that caught my attention was the large canvas called The Fourth Estate by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. It was lcreated from 1898 to 1902 in Divisionist style. This kind of painting utilizes individual points of color in a neo-Impressionist fashion. Depicting workers on strike, the painting gets its name from the working class that embodies the meaning of “the fourth estate.” Out of the crowd of demonstrators and into the light step three figures, two men and a woman holding a baby. They are walking toward the viewer confidently, not at all in a hurry. They are clearly there to try to reach a deal with their employer. But they are not panicked or nervous. They have terms and conditions that have to be met. The colors in the painting have a cold quality, but the light gives the group a vibrancy that makes them look powerful and in control of the situation.

Foreign artists represented included Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian. Indeed, these works are some of the most significant in the collection. Klee’s Wald Bau from 1919 and Kandinsky’s Composition 1916 stand out, for example.

One section of the museum focuses on Italian Futurists, such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero. In fact, one room is dedicated to Boccioni’s works. I had visited a museum featuring Depero’s works in Rovereto a few years earlier, so I was familiar with the Futurist style. Born in Italy during the early 20^th century, Futurism looked to the future rather than to the past. It praised modernity and technological advances. Industrial cities, cars and airplanes were often subjects of Futurist artworks. Depero’s creations certainly looked like they were in motion. I recalled some people depicted in one work as resembling machines.

The Novecento of the 1920s is well represented with a style that was inspired by ancient Roman art and Renaissance art, which are meshed together in an abstract way. Giorgio de Chirico’s surrealism is on display, too. In fact, his creations take up an entire room. Art Informel by Italian artists and the Azimeth group are featured in the museum, too. The last section follows trends from the Sixties to the Eighties with exhibits of Kinetic Art, Programmed Art, Pop Art, Analytical Painting and Conceptual Art. Lucio Fontana’s works take up the top floor. Take a look at his neon sculpture and you’ll realize what an artistic journey you have taken from the social realism of The Fourth Estate floors below.

A few works worth mentioning include Giacomo Balla’s Ragazza che corre sul balcone from 1912 and Umberto Boccioni’s Svilippo di una bottiglia nello spazio from 1913-35. Balla’s painting showing a boy running on a balcony is dynamic and vivacious as it shows spontaneous movement and the joy and innocence of childhood. The colors of blue, brown and green with white help to create the sense of motion that is central to the painting. Futurism is all about movement as opposed to the static and still life qualities of Cubism.

While Boccioni was also a Futurist, his bronze sculpture Sviluppo di una bottiglia nello spazio showcased a bottle on a plate in unique way that is reminiscent of a natura morta. This kind of still life was not at all typical for Boccioni’s style because of its lack of movement.

Amedeo Modigliani’s portraits were on display, too. He painted the Parisian art collector Paul Guillaume with one eye, for instance. In Arturo Martini’s sculpture La convalescente from 1932, the sick, young woman who is the subject of the work has been forgotten and abandoned. Her empty gaze and lost look practically ripped through my heart. It reminded me of when I was taken downstairs on a stretcher to have my gallbladder operation. The nurses left me on the stretcher in the empty space next to the operating room. I could hear the doctor trying to wake up the patient. At first she didn’t respond. He had to talk to her several times. For a few minutes, I thought that I had been abandoned and that the woman having the operation before me had died. I wanted to run out of there, but I was drugged and could hardly move. Finally, she regained consciousness.

I particularly liked De Chirico’s surrealist works with vibrant colors. His I bagni misteriosi was inspired by a 16^th century work by Lucas Cranach. Ever since I was a child, I have loved Klee’s abstract art. For me Klee’s art has a sense of rationality and logic that I often find absent in abstract works.

On the third floor there are glass walls that provide great views of the Duomo Square and the cathedral as well as Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade. I stood in that room for a long time, surveying the passersby walking to and fro below me, gazing at the long line to enter the cathedral and the people having lunch at expensive restaurants on the square. It was nice to be up there, looking down at the crowds on that scorching hot May day.

Tracy A. Burns is a writer, editor and proofreader in Prague.