The Rovati Foundation exhibition is dedicated to the theme of dualism and the double, in the two-faced relationship, physical and symbolic, of dialectics and contrast. The protagonists are two Etruscan bronzes from the 3rd century. to. C., in turn compared with two sculptures by Gino Severini: the double in the double.
The exhibition Janus-Culsans: the double and the Etruscan inspiration of Gino Severini, set up in the White Space on the main floor of the Art Museum, takes inspiration from Gino Severini's (1883-1966) interest in Etruscan world, and more generally for the archeology of his homeland, and by his connection with Cortona, his hometown. A regular visitor to the Museum of the Etruscan Academy, in his works he was often inspired by the finds preserved in the museum, to which he then donated some of his most significant works.
The first of the two Etruscan bronzes on display dating back to the 3rd century. to. There's Culsans
This is the Etruscan divinity corresponding to the Roman Janus, tutelary deity of doors and passages; the second is Selvans, god of the forest and rural activities. The two sculptures bear on the thigh a long one Votive inscription in the Etruscan alphabet, which clarifies its identity by reporting the name of the person dedicating it, perhaps a person who held a public function. Responsible for monitoring the border between the urban area and the surrounding territory, their positioning on the sides of the Cortona city gate certifies the sacred nature of this liminal space, already attested in other centers of ancient Italy. It is precisely from the Etruscan Culsans that Severini was inspired to create the two sculptures on display: the first Two-Faced Janus, a bronze made in the early 1960s, while the second, larger, is a posthumous fusion created by the will of his daughter Romana Severini. This last sculpture was then donated to the Etruscan Academy of Cortona. The fruitful pictorial activity of Gino Severini belongs to Still life with herring and blue composter, painted in 1946-1947 as a reworking - with references to the Etruscan world - of a genre widely practiced by avant-garde painters: the painting depicts a table with herring in the foreground, enriched by the presence of two vases, a jug and a container, in which we recognize the allusion to the bucchero pottery that decorated the banquets of the Etruscan aristocrats.
Giovanna Forlanelli, president of the Luigi Rovati Foundation: “With this new exhibition our collaboration with the Etruscan Academy of Cortona continues, aimed at giving value and impact to the extraordinary works present in their Museum". Paolo Bruschetti, deputy Lucumone of the Etruscan Academy, “The valorization of works from the Cortona Museum continues and develops with a new and original comparison between ancient and modern, from which the Academy and the city of Cortona will only benefit through an exhibition that will strengthen - I am convinced - the closeness between two institutions that have always made collecting and increasing culture their reason for living”.
Gino Severini
Born in Cortona on 7 April 1883, Gino Severini he initially settled in Rome, where he met Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla, before arriving in Paris in 1906: here he came into contact with some of the liveliest artistic-literary circles of the time, animated by personalities of the caliber of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Max Jacob and Paul Fort, whose daughter Jeanne he marries.
Protagonist of European avant-garde painting in the first half of the twentieth century, he initially joined the Futurist movement and later assisted in the birth and development of Cubism, combining in his work the dynamic values of the former with the constructive ones of the latter. His contacts with Italy were never interrupted. Having returned to Cortona in 1935 to collect an honor conferred on him by the citizens, the painter reconnected with his hometown and in particular with the most prestigious local cultural institution, the Accademia Etrusca, founded in 1727 and since then dedicated to the in-depth study of archaeological and historical-antiquarian studies.
Severini returned to Cortona more and more often in his years of maturity and old age, expressing the desire to rest here at the end of his life. In September 1963 he communicated to the Etruscan Academy his desire to link some of his most significant works to it, with a bequest made executive a few years after his death in Paris on 26 February 1966. In June 1969 the Municipality of Cortona was able thus inaugurating the "Gino Severini Room" at the Academy Museum, later enriched thanks to other donations and recently rearranged and further enlarged to occupy three rooms on the upper floor of the museum.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication published by the Luigi Rovati Foundation, Giano-Culsans: the double and the Etruscan inspiration of Gino Severini with texts by Paolo Bruschetti, Sergio Angori, Romana Severini Brunori, Giulio Paolucci, Paolo Giulierini, Marco Belpoliti, Luigi Donati.
