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拍品专文
Capturing the colorful dynamism and frenetic energy of modern Europe, Gino Severini’s Danseuse: Relevée sur pointes, embodies the fundamental principles of the artist’s creative output. Composed of kaleidoscopic planes of color in geometric forms with jagged black and white shapes convening around the center, the work represents the expressive gestures of a dancer in motion and the electricity which radiates from her. Painted in the 1950s, a crucial period for the artist during which he revisited many of the central motifs of his early career with a mature sensibility and new theories of compositional balance, the present work teems with the quintessential vibrancy for which Severini is most renowned.
In 1900, Severini crossed paths with the painter Umberto Boccioni and the pair struck up a lifelong friendship and professional alliance. Together they were introduced to the principles of Divisionism by Giacomo Balla, after visiting his studio in Rome. He later took the pair under his wing. Severini later settled in Paris in November 1906 and following a chance encounter with the painter Amedeo Modigliani, a fellow Italian in Paris, Severini was introduced to the Parisian Avant-Garde--figures like Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Georges Braque and Max Jacob, who would become fundamental influences on him as he experimented with cubist compositions and abstract methods of figural, and later non-figural, representation. While living in France, Severini joined the Italian Futurist movement in 1910, alongside Balla and Boccioni as well as Carlo Carrà and Luigi Russolo. As a group, they signed the Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista and set forth to explore the infusion of energy and movement into their collective oeuvre through a methodical application of light, color and form. Severini departed from his contemporaries, however, who represented the motion and vigor produced by modern machinery and technology. Rather, Severini was interested in the energetic output of the human body.
Now enmeshed in the rich creative scene of Montmartre, Severini visited the frequent haunts of his bohemian peers, the heady Boites de nuits and racy cabaret balls, enthralled by the frenetic energy which filled the atmosphere. In particular, it was the expressive Pan-Pan au Monico dance which piqued Severini’s interest and inspired a unique new challenge: capturing not the figural gestures of movement, but the rhythm, kinetics, and centrifugal force produced in its wake. Severini applied fractured geometric shapes to his canvas and adopted the Pointillist and Divisionist style of the Neo-Impressionists—pioneered by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and first introduced to him by Balla—applying isolated points of dissonant color to his canvas to simulate energy and vibration and to emphasize the immateriality and impermanence of objects in motion. “I was interested in achieving a creative freedom, a style that I could express with Seurat’s and the Neo-Impressionists’ color technique, but shaped to my needs,” Severini detailed in his autobiography. “Proof that I found it is in my paintings of that period, among which is the famous Pan-Pan au Monico. My preference for Neo-Impressionism dates from these works. At times I tried to suppress it, but it always worked its way back to the surface.” (G. Severini, The Life of a Painter, New Jersey, 1983, p. 53).
Indeed, these French artistic sensibilities would re-emerge decades later, even after Severini’s break from Futurism in 1916 during which he experimented with Neoclassicism, Synthetic and Analytical Cubism and even religious work as part of the larger Italian Return to Order movement. Returning to Paris in 1950, and looking back at the Futurist styles which he honed there, Severini revisited the motifs and techniques that defined his work during the early years in France, namely that of the dancer, solidifying this icon as one of the most important of his artistic career. This time, however, it was not the Parisian night clubs and bars and their rambunctious patrons that gave Severini inspiration, but instead his daughter, a ballerina in training.
In the present work, Severini aims to emulate the dynamism of a dancer on stage. This affect is aided by his deliberate placement of complimentary and contrasting colors—pale yellow and violet; orange and blue—to create harmonies and dissonances that evoke the ambient rhythm and vibration produced by the eponymous dancer, reminiscent of the Orphist techniques of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Severini’s mosaic-like dabs of paint, now more evolved than in his earlier work, likely due in part to the religious mosaics he created in the mid-thirties, lend a luminous and transient quality to the composition, evocative of the light flittering across the dancer on stage. Bridging the Futurist movement and French Modern Art, Gino Severini’s work stands at a fascinating intersection of Parisian sensibility and Italian character. Mimicking the centrifugal force generated by the subject’s rapid, whirling gestures, Danseuse: Relevée sur pointes exemplifies the fundamentals of Futurist theory, representing the human perception of movement and energy and the inherent impermanence of objects.
In 1900, Severini crossed paths with the painter Umberto Boccioni and the pair struck up a lifelong friendship and professional alliance. Together they were introduced to the principles of Divisionism by Giacomo Balla, after visiting his studio in Rome. He later took the pair under his wing. Severini later settled in Paris in November 1906 and following a chance encounter with the painter Amedeo Modigliani, a fellow Italian in Paris, Severini was introduced to the Parisian Avant-Garde--figures like Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Georges Braque and Max Jacob, who would become fundamental influences on him as he experimented with cubist compositions and abstract methods of figural, and later non-figural, representation. While living in France, Severini joined the Italian Futurist movement in 1910, alongside Balla and Boccioni as well as Carlo Carrà and Luigi Russolo. As a group, they signed the Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista and set forth to explore the infusion of energy and movement into their collective oeuvre through a methodical application of light, color and form. Severini departed from his contemporaries, however, who represented the motion and vigor produced by modern machinery and technology. Rather, Severini was interested in the energetic output of the human body.
Now enmeshed in the rich creative scene of Montmartre, Severini visited the frequent haunts of his bohemian peers, the heady Boites de nuits and racy cabaret balls, enthralled by the frenetic energy which filled the atmosphere. In particular, it was the expressive Pan-Pan au Monico dance which piqued Severini’s interest and inspired a unique new challenge: capturing not the figural gestures of movement, but the rhythm, kinetics, and centrifugal force produced in its wake. Severini applied fractured geometric shapes to his canvas and adopted the Pointillist and Divisionist style of the Neo-Impressionists—pioneered by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and first introduced to him by Balla—applying isolated points of dissonant color to his canvas to simulate energy and vibration and to emphasize the immateriality and impermanence of objects in motion. “I was interested in achieving a creative freedom, a style that I could express with Seurat’s and the Neo-Impressionists’ color technique, but shaped to my needs,” Severini detailed in his autobiography. “Proof that I found it is in my paintings of that period, among which is the famous Pan-Pan au Monico. My preference for Neo-Impressionism dates from these works. At times I tried to suppress it, but it always worked its way back to the surface.” (G. Severini, The Life of a Painter, New Jersey, 1983, p. 53).
Indeed, these French artistic sensibilities would re-emerge decades later, even after Severini’s break from Futurism in 1916 during which he experimented with Neoclassicism, Synthetic and Analytical Cubism and even religious work as part of the larger Italian Return to Order movement. Returning to Paris in 1950, and looking back at the Futurist styles which he honed there, Severini revisited the motifs and techniques that defined his work during the early years in France, namely that of the dancer, solidifying this icon as one of the most important of his artistic career. This time, however, it was not the Parisian night clubs and bars and their rambunctious patrons that gave Severini inspiration, but instead his daughter, a ballerina in training.
In the present work, Severini aims to emulate the dynamism of a dancer on stage. This affect is aided by his deliberate placement of complimentary and contrasting colors—pale yellow and violet; orange and blue—to create harmonies and dissonances that evoke the ambient rhythm and vibration produced by the eponymous dancer, reminiscent of the Orphist techniques of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Severini’s mosaic-like dabs of paint, now more evolved than in his earlier work, likely due in part to the religious mosaics he created in the mid-thirties, lend a luminous and transient quality to the composition, evocative of the light flittering across the dancer on stage. Bridging the Futurist movement and French Modern Art, Gino Severini’s work stands at a fascinating intersection of Parisian sensibility and Italian character. Mimicking the centrifugal force generated by the subject’s rapid, whirling gestures, Danseuse: Relevée sur pointes exemplifies the fundamentals of Futurist theory, representing the human perception of movement and energy and the inherent impermanence of objects.