GINO SEVERINI, quotes on his painting art and life in Italian Futurism + biography facts of the Futurist artist
Gino Severini (1883 – 1966), his quotes on painting art in Italian Futurism & short biography facts. In 1900 Gino Severini met the painter Umberto Boccioni. Together they visited the studio of Balla where they we taught in the technique of color divisionism, Seurat’s theory on light and colours. In 1910 Severini signed the ‘Manifesto of the Futurist Painters’ with his fellow Futurism colleagues: the famous artists Boccioni, Carrà, Russoli and Balla. A famous Futurist painting of Severini is ‘Armored train’. Later in his life Severini got more and more attracted by Cubism and moreover Purism. At the bottom biography notes for Gino Severini, with useful artist links. – the editor.
|
Gino Severini: ‘Pam Pam dance in Monaco'; 1909-11 |
Gino Severini, his artist quotes on art, Futurism & painting by the Italian Futurist painter
– The Cubists and the other avant-garde can see the danger of being called Futurists. They are attracted by research involving the movement and the complexity of subjects. To avoid this kind of treat, they invented Orphism.
* Gino Severini, source of artist quote on Cubist Orphism art in Paris, in a: letter to Marinetti, 31 March 1913; as quoted in ‘Severini futurista’, op. cit, p. 146. (famous painter of Italian Futurism, later he was creating synthetic Cubism and metaphysical painting art; more biography facts at the bottom)
– Appolinaire (French famous writer, poet and leading art theoretician on Cubism in Paris, fh) told me about a book of his on the Cubists that’s about to come out. He divides the Cubists into Physical Cubists, (Gleize) [sic], who add some dramatic elements to their expression of external realities; Scientific Cubists (Picasso, Metzinger) and “Orphiques” [sic] (I give you (to Boccioni, fh) this last classification in French because I don’t know how to translate it); in Appolinaire’s opinion the “Orphiques” [sic] seek new elements of expressing abstract realities; and we Futurists belong with the latter.
* Gino Severini, source of his critic quote on Orphism in Paris Cubism: letter to futurist artist Boccioni, Paris, 29 October 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 55.
– The truth lies somewhere between these two aesthetics (static Cubism and dynamic Futurism, fh) . The ‘pure form’ of Ingres (famous French classical painter, fh) led inevitably to a life-less Platonism; the lyricism and romanticism of Délacroix (famous French Romanticism painter, fh) no longer tailed with our cerebral and geometric age… …as in all great ages, today’s artwork must be the synthesis of these two things (1917) .
* Gino Severini, source of his quote on static Cubism art and dynamic Futurism: ‘Preface’, Severini; in exhibition catalogue, Photo Secession Gallery, New York, March 1917.
– In our young days, when Modigliani and I first came to Paris, in 1906, nobody was very clear about ideas. But unconsciously, we knew quite a lot of things, of which we became aware later on. (interview, 1956) .
* Gino Severini, source of artist quote on early life in Paris: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247.
– In the early days the Cubists’ method of grasping an object was to go round and round it (round about the object, fh); the futurists declared that one had to get inside it (inside the object, fh). In my opinion the two views can be reconciled in a poetic cognition of the world. But to the very fact that they appealed to the creative depths in the painter by awakening in him hidden forces which were intuitive and vitalizing, the Futurist theories did more than the Cubist principles to open up unexplored and boundless horizons.
* Gino Severini, source of artist quote on the object in Cubism art: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248.
– It was during the first years (1906-1910, fh) the we realized the presence of a dualism deep down within us, where another person, whom we ourselves do not know, tends, at the moment of the creative act, to supplant the person we believe ourselves to be and would like to be. It is difficult to bring these two individualities into accord, yet it is upon this accord that the development of a personality largely depends. My first contact with the art of Seurat (French neo-impressionism painter, fh) whom I adopted, once and for all, as my master, did a great deal to help me to express myself in terms of the two simultaneous and often opposed aspirations. This opposition caused me much mental torture, I must admit… (1956) .
* Gino Severini, source of his artist quote on color-divisionism by the French painter Seurat: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247.
– … since then (probably around 1916, fh) I have found consolation in William Blake (English religious painter and graphic artist; ‘Without Contraries is no progression’’, he says in his ‘’Proverbs of Hell’’. And Charles Baudelaire’s idea that ‘Variety is an essential condition of life’ seems to me to be in perfect accord with my aspirations and with my intention, as a Futurist painter, to put ‘’life’’ in the place occupied by ‘’reasoning” in the art of the Cubist period. .
* Gino Severini, source of his quote on Blake and Baudelaire: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247.
– The intellectual abstraction of the second period of Cubism (analytic Cubism, fh) was of great importance, however. By its aspirations to the ‘eternal’ and its “concept of proportion inspired by the Classics” it revived the sense of craftsmanship concept in many painters. And this perfectly coincided with another of my ambitions – which was to make, with paint, an object having the same perfection of craftsmanship that a cabinet-maker would put into a piece of furniture.
* Gino Severini, source of his quote on analytic Cubism with classical aspirations: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248.
– It should also be born in mind that the research on ‘movement’ and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example the “Portrait of Madame S.” (1912) and the “Seated Woman” (1914).
* Severini, source of his critical quote on ‘painting movement’ as forced Futurist concept: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248.
– Futurism and Cubism are comparable in importance tot the invention of perspective, for which they substituted a new concept op space. All subsequent movements were latent in them or brought about by them… … the two movements cannot be regarded as in opposition to each other, even though they started from opposite points; I maintain (an idea approved by Appolinaire and later by Matisse) that they are two extremes of the same sign, tending to coincide at certain points which only the poetic instinct of the painter can discover: “poetry” being the content and “raison d’être” of art. .
* Gino Severini, source of his artist quote on movement in art & life: ”Letters of the great artists, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, pp. 248, 249. (famous painter of Italian Futurism, later creating synthetic Cubism and metaphysical art; more biography facts of Severini at the bottom)
Gino Severini, biography facts of the Italian artist painter of Futurism / Cubism painting art
Severini was born in Cortona. In 1900 he met the famous painter Umberto Boccioni. Together they visited the studio of master painter Balla where they were introduced to the technique of Divisionism: Seurat’s theory on light and division of colours. In 1910 Severini signed the famous ‘Manifesto of the Futurist Painters’ with his fellow Futurism colleagues: Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo and later Balla. Later he got more and more attracted by Cubism. After 1912 Severini divided his time between Paris and Rome.
Severini abandoned Futurism after the first World War and became part of the ‘return to order’, becoming interested in a more conservative, analytic type of painting and making a study of the Italian early Renaissance master painters. For a time he worked in a Synthetic Cubism mode, but with the publication of ‘Du cubisme au classicisme’ in 1916 he departed from Cubist purism and adopted a neo-classical style with metaphysical overtones, as the Italian master artist De Chirico did. After a period of figurative painting Severini reverted to more abstract forms in his art. In the 1940s his style of creating art became semi-abstract. In the 1950s he returned to his Futurist subjects: dancers, people, light and movement. He made also several murals in fresco and mosaic, as in the Church of St. Mark in Cortona, the place in Italy where Severini was born.
Gino Severini, art links for biography facts of the Italian painter artist in Futurism
*
