Gino Severini - painter and mosaicist

Tuscan was leading figure in Futurist movement

Gino Severini, typically sporting a monacle, was
an influential figure in 20th century Italian art 

The painter and mosaicist Gino Severini, who was an important figure in the Italian Futurist movement in the early 20th century and is regarded as  one of the most progressive of all 20th century Italian artists, was born on this day in 1883 in the hilltop town of Cortona in Tuscany.

He divided his time largely between Rome and Paris, where he died in 1966. Although he was a signatory - along with Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo and Giacomo Balla - of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurist Painters in 1910, his work was not altogether typical of the movement.  

Indeed, ultimately he rejected Futurism, moving on to Cubism, having become friends with Cubist painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in Paris, before ultimately turning his interest to Neo-Classicism and the Return to Order movement that followed the First World War. 

He attracted criticism among his peers by his associations with the Fascist-supporting Novecento Italiano movement, whose work became closely linked with state propaganda. Severini was involved with Benito Mussolini's "Third Rome" project, supplying murals and mosaics for Fascist architectural structures inspired by imperial Rome. 

Working in mosaics became an increasing focus for Severini in his later years, particularly after he rediscovered his Catholic faith. His religious mosaics displayed such refined technique he was dubbed the “father of modern mosaics". 

Severini was also the author of many essays and several books on painting, including Du cubism au classicisme (From Cubism to Classicism) in 1921 and The Life of a Painter, a vivid account of his early career. 

Severini's Le Boulevard (1913), his Futurist 
interpretation of Parisian street life

Born into a family of modest means in Cortona, where his father a junior court official and his mother a dressmaker, Severini studied at the Scuola Tecnica in Cortona until the age of 15, at which point his formal education ceased when he and other classmates were caught trying to steal exam papers. They were expelled and probably lucky to escape prison. 

In 1899, his mother took him to Rome, thinking his prospects would be better there. He gained employment as a shipping clerk. He painted in his spare time and, thanks to the patronage of a fellow Cortonese with whom he had become friends, was able to attend art classes at the Rome Fine Arts Institute, studying nudes. He was not a disciplined student, however, and found himself cut adrift when his frustrated patron cancelled his allowance. 

Left to fend for himself when his mother returned to Cortona, Severini was so poor he lived in a room that was essentially a store cupboard in a kitchen in Via Sardegna in Ostiense. In 1900 he met Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla for the first time. Balla took him on as a student, introducing him to the technique of pointillism, a painting method where effects were created by dotting the canvas or other surface with contrasting colours according to the principles of optical science.  The technique would have a major influence on Severini's early work and on Futurist painting in general.

Severini (right) with Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti and Umberto Boccioni in Paris in 1912

He moved to Paris in 1906 with Balla’s encouragement. Declaring the French capital to be his spiritual home, he settled in Montmartre, befriending another Italian, Amedeo Modigliani, and getting to know most of the city’s upcoming artists, including the Cubists Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris and Picasso.

It was through Severini that some of the leading Italian Futurists visited Paris in 1911, absorbing some of Severini’s influence by adopting some of the humanist features of Cubism, namely the human figure in motion, as further means of expressing pictorial dynamism.  

Severini’s own Futurist work had been based on human figures, nightclub dancers or simply people in the street, rather than the cars or machines that had been central to the attempts of many of his fellow Futurist artists to depict speed and dynamism in painting.  In his nightclub scenes, he would evoke the sensations of movement and sound through rhythmic forms and flickering colours. His Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin (1912) and The Boulevard (1913) were examples of his best work in Paris. 

However, Severini did produce some of the finest Futurist war art, notably his Red Cross Train Passing a Village (1914), Italian Lancers at a Gallop (1915) and Armoured Train (1915). 

His work over the next few years could be categorised as an idiosyncratic form of Cubism with elements of pointillism and Futurism before he began to experiment with a Neoclassical figurative style in portraits such as Maternity (1916). 

Severini's Mosaic of San Marco
in his hometown of Cortona

Severini had married in 1913, his bride Jeanne Paul Fort, the 16-year-old daughter of the French poet Paul Fort. The couple were desperately poor and when Severini succumbed to pleurisy soon after the wedding, they moved to live with his parents, by then living in Montepulciano, where Jeanne became pregnant. They moved back to Paris, where their daughter, Gina, was born. A second child, Tonio, died from pneumonia, which was a factor in reigniting Severini’s Catholicism, which he had earlier renounced.

Only between the wars did Severini begin to find financial stability, realised mainly through his commissions to create frescoes and mosaics. 

He produced mosaics for the Palazzo di Giustizia in Milan (1936), the Palazzo delle Poste in Alessandria (1936) and mosaics and frescoes at the University of Padua (1937).  He worked for the Mussolini regime at the Foro Italico, a multi-venue sports complex, and the Palazzo degli Uffici, the inaugural building of the EUR project. Severini’s association with the Fascists was roundly condemned within the international artistic community, although none of Severini’s work was overtly pro-Fascist. 

After the fall of Mussolini and the end of the Second World War, Severini received lucrative commissions to decorate the offices of the Italian airline companies KLM and Alitalia among other organisations. 

His Cubist-inspired Mosaic of San Marco (1961), which adorns the facade of the Church of San Marco in Cortona, is seen as a signature work. He died in Paris in 1966 at the age of 82 but was buried in Cortona.

Cortona's elevated position gives it commanding
views over the surrounding countryside

Travel tip:

Cortona, founded by the Etruscans, is one of the oldest cities in Tuscany. Its Etruscan Academy Museum displays a vast collection of bronze, ceramic and funerary items reflecting the town’s past. The museum also includes an archaeological park that includes city fortifications and stretches of Roman roads. Outside the museum, the houses in Via Janelli are some of the oldest houses still surviving in Italy. Powerful during the mediaeval period, Cortona was defeated by Naples in 1409 and then sold to Florence.  Characterised by its steep narrow streets, Cortona’s hilltop location - it has an elevation of 600 metres (2,000 ft) - offers sweeping views of the Valdichiana, including Lago Trasimeno, where Hannibal ambushed the Roman army in 217 BC during the Second Punic War.

The Piramide Cestia and Porta San Paolo are
two highlights of the Ostiense neighbourhood

Travel tip:

Severini’s earliest home in Rome was in the Ostiense neighbourhood, which can be found to the south of the Trastevere district. Bordered by the working class areas of Garbatella and Testaccio, Ostiense itself has shed its own down-at-heel reputation to become an increasingly trendy part of the city, populated by young professionals and boasting a thriving nightlife. The home of the majestic Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura - the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls - with its gold-plated ceilings, of the Roman  Piramide Cestia and the 3rd century Porta San Paolo, the district was built around the Via Ostiense, the ancient road linking the city with the Roman harbour at Ostia. 

Also on this day:

1763: The birth of musician Domenico Dragonetti

1794: The birth of opera singer Giovanni Battista Rubini

1906: Vesuvius erupts, killing more than 200 people

1973: The birth of footballer Marco Delvecchio

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Domenico di Pace Beccafumi – artist

Painter from Siena experimented with rich colour 

Beccafumi's Madonna with Child, St Jerome and the Infant
St John is notable for its almost luminous colours

Considered one of the last true representatives of the Sienese school of painting, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi died on this day in 1551 in Siena.

He is remembered for his direction of the paving of the Duomo - cathedral - of Siena between 1517 and 1544, when he made ingenious improvements to the technical processes employed for this task, which in the end took more than 150 years to complete.

Domenico was born in Montaperti near Siena in about 1486. His father, Giacomo di Pace, worked on the estate of Lorenzo Beccafumi, whose surname he eventually took.

Seeing his talent for drawing, Lorenzo had taken an interest in him and recommended that he learn painting from the Sienese artist, Mechero.

In 1509 Di Pace Beccafumi travelled to Rome for a short period, where he learnt from artists working on the Vatican.

Back in Siena, he painted religious pieces for churches and was only mildly influenced by the trends dominating the neighbouring Florentine school.

Domenico Beccafumi: a self-portrait

He designed scenes from the Old Testament to decorate the floor of the cathedral and also painted frescoes for Palazzo Pubblico in the city.

Di Pace Beccafumi is renowned for his use of rich, almost luminous colours. One of his paintings, which was rediscovered only in 1983, is Madonna with Child, St Jerome and the Infant St John. It shows Mary wearing a blue robe lined with an almost iridescent pale green. The painting is now in a collection in Madrid.

Siena had been an artistic rival of Florence, but wars and natural disasters had caused a decline by the 15th century. Stylistically, Beccafumi was the last in a long line of Sienese artists to use intense colour to express emotion and passion in his paintings.

The main altar of the Duomo di Siena
and Beccafumi's mosaic floor

Travel tip:

Siena’s Duomo, was designed and completed between 1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure. It has a beautiful façade built in Tuscan Romanesque style using polychrome marble. Inside, its inlaid marble mosaic floor is one of the most ornate of its kind in Italy and covers the whole floor of the cathedral. The uncovered floor can be seen for only a few weeks each year, usually including September. The rest of the year it is kept covered, with only a few panels on display at a time. Half of the 13 Scenes from the life of Elijah in the transept of the cathedral were designed by Domenico Beccafumi, as well as Moses Striking Water on the Rock and Moses on Mount Sinai. His final contribution to the floor was The Sacrifice of Isaac, completed in 1547, which is in front of the main altar.

A monument to the Battle of Montaperti

Travel tip:

Montaperti, where Di Pace Beccafumi was born, is part of the comune (municipality) of Castelnuovo Berardenga in the province of Siena. Since 1932 it has been included in the Chianti wine production area. The famous Battle of Montaperti fought between Guelphs and Ghibellines took place there on September 4, 1260.

Also on this day:

1892: The birth of Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pinza

1939: The birth of murdered anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone

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