Painting of the Month (14) February 2011. Severini (and update on Sonny!)



The Dance of the Pan-Pan at the “Monico” 1909-1911 http://www.all-art.org/

 The Futurists were directly inspired by Cubism. It was primarily but not exclusively an Italian movement that pervaded all parts of life from architecture, music and politics to painting and design. They loathed all forms of previous expression and the movement's manifesto is a bit scarey and pre-echoes sentimments of Fascism. However, not withstanding that, a lot of the painting is very attractive and beatifully designed.
This picture reveals more the longer you look at it and takes obvious influence from Cubism. Gino Severini knew Pablo Picasso and was a link between the French and Italian avante garde.
The surface of the picture almost resembles an abstraction but of course to be truly abstract a painting must be representative of nothing!
The size of the work is monumental (roughly 9 by 13 feet!) and it dominated the Futurists' 1912 exhibition. The idea was that the viewer would feel as though they were in the scene themself as the foreground characters were life-sized
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Update on Sonny (4)

He is losing his lovely thick black hair but it will soon grow back
To prove he hasn't lost his sense of humour, he is quick to point out that mine won't!

I am happy to say that Sonny is now at the halfway point of his chemotherapy and it's going well. There have been one or two complications and setbacks but generally it's going in the right direction. He, and the family, continue to recieve the most amazing support from charities, friends, other family members, strangers and, most importantly, the nursing and medical staff of Great Ormond Street Hospital.