Still Life 1916

This is Gino Severini's 'Still Life' - no date given - and its surfaces, shapes, and colors pop out and dissolve a little, like life. I can imagine him setting this up, and the pleasure he took arranging everything. See how the straight lines of the objects – the bottle, the glasses – contrast with the floral wallpaper and the patterns of the tablecloths. It’s like he is thinking, "How do I translate this into my own language?". I imagine he chose the objects carefully, for their inherent interest. He might have shifted them around. Maybe he was thinking about what Braque or Picasso might do, but doing his own thing. Cubism was in the air back then, everyone was at it, but this has Severini's distinctive stamp. Painting is embodied expression and invites multiple interpretations and meanings, hopefully inspiring our own creativity.