Severini, Gino (1883-1966)
Natura morta con la fruttiera (Still Life with Fruit Dish)
1918
Oil on canvas, 61 x 72 cm
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano
Severini, recalling in his Memories, the time he spent with his family in Aix-Les-Bains in 1918, provides a useful explanation for the use of that obsessively regular small-circle stippling that decoratively flattens the space of the still life: “I had found walls papered with a special wallpaper that I liked very much, and it gave me useful elements for several paintings.”
To the directorial device of the still life enclosed in a framed oval, Severini adds, not without irony, the cartouche with the signature silhouetted against the surface of the false frame. Common to his 1918 paintings is the position of the main, eye-catching element of the still life (in this case the fruit bowl with three pears), arranged on the central axis and slightly shifted upward. (Brera)