Enrico e il divano

The male figure is painted almost face on; behind him the shape of the divan on which he is leaning in a detached manner is outlined schematically. The chromatic range is dominated by pinkish tones that vary until they become nearly white in response to the light.
The work, painted in 1931 and thus in the full flood of the artistic renewal claimed by the Six Painters of Turin, is exemplary of the expressive choice made at the time by Levi, in the direction of the models that had attracted him to Paris, Modigliani first of all and Soutine, set out however in a key of daily intimacy.
The particular expressionism that Levi developed in this period of his activity is fully revealed in this work, in which he moves in an emotional and psychological direction more than in one of criticism of the arrangements governing society.