Mercury passing before the sun

"The Mercury passing before the sun as seen through a telescope" is one of Giacomo Balla's beautiful paintings. The artist uses a set of primary and secondary colors associated with a combination of bright complementary colors such as blue and orange. The application of tempera on paper gives the painting a nice texture especially with the different layers of paint, one on top of each other to create the different shapes (some organic, some geometric) and the use of black and white for light and shadow. The subject in the artwork doesn't seem like it could be easily or clearly be identified; I have never seen mercury passing before the sun through a telescope before, but the artist could have portrayed mercury the way he had perceived it artistically.