The Sea=Dancer by Gino Severini (1883-1966) is my favorite painting in the museum that I worked at this summer. Severini was part of the Futurist movement that started in Milan in 1910 with Fillipo Tommaso Marinetti’s manifesto, Manifesto of the Futurist Painters. The Futurists believed in motion and progression and a rebellion against art of the past. The museum that I worked at has arguably the most comprehensive collection of Futurist artists, including Balla, Boccioni (the most famous of the Futurists) and Carlo Carra among others.
Severini is my favorite. He holds this title because unlike the other Futurists who focused on the movement of automobiles, airplanes or animals, Severini focused his paintings on the graceful movement of the dancer. The dancer is a theme that came up many times in his work. There are two Severini paintings of dancers at the museum.
In the Mattioli Collection there is his Blue Dancer (1912), which is of a female dancer abstracted but not to the point that it is not easily recognizable. I love how Severini added sequins (similar to ones that would probably be on the dancer’s dress) onto the actual painting. I also love the edge of the man in a tuxedo that you can see at the top left and the lady in a large white hat and waiter in red conversing to the right of the painting. I can just imagine this lively nightclub scene.
My favorite Severini is Sea=Dancer (1914). I love this piece not only because of its warm bright colors and use of Divisionism (a technique of painting where brushstrokes and dots are divided and there is no mixing and blending of the colors as seen in traditional painting) but mainly for its composition. I love how the painting continues with a couple brushstrokes onto its wooden frame, which Severini also created, as though the movement of the dance can’t be contained. But mostly I love this painting because the dancer is almost unrecognizable. Some days when I would be guarding the room its in, I wouldn’t be able to see the dancer and some days it was so clear to me. What I thought was the dancer would change day to day. The green cylinder-like shape in the top middle left I always can see as her abdomen but what I perceive as her arms, legs, and skirt would change constantly. For me this is the most powerful type of art. One that no matter how long you stare at it, it can always provide something new to you or some other alternate meaning.
