The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (Il Funerale dell’anarchico Galli) is a painting by Italian painter Carlo Carrà. It was finished in 1911, during the artist's futurist phase. It currently resides in New York City's Museum of Modern Art.
The subject of the work is the funeral of Italian anarchist Angelo Galli, killed by police during a general strike in 1904. The Italian State feared that the funeral would become a de facto political demonstration and refused the mourning anarchists entrance into the cemetery itself. When anarchists resisted, the police responded with force and a violent scuffle ensued.
Carlo Carrà was present. His work embodies the tension and chaos of the scene: the movement of the bodies, the clashing of anarchists and police, the black flags flying in the air. He reflects in a later memoir:
I saw before me the bier, covered with red carnations, wavering dangerously on the shoulders of the pallbearers. I saw the horses becoming restive, and clubs and lances clashing, so that it seemed to me that at any moment the corpse would fall to the ground and be trampled by the horses…
Famous quotes containing the words funeral and/or anarchist:
“I asked if I got sick and died, would you
With my black funeral go walking too,
If you’d stand close to hear them talk or pray
While I’m let down in that steep bank of clay.”
—J.M. (John Millington)
“Lady Dynamite, let’s dance quickly,
Let’s dance and sing and dynamite everything!”
—French anarchist song of the 1880s.