Composition sur une courbe algebrique

This is an abstract work typical of the 1950s, when Severini went back to Futurism after the protracted figurative interlude of the interwar years. The allusion to an algebraic curve testifies to the artist’s lively interest in the relationship between form and “number,” already manifest in his “Du Cubisme au Classicisme” (1921). This late-Futurist orientation takes the form of the motion impressed upon the straight-line segments and curves, which break up the entire field into a series of irregular geometric fragments, creating pieces into which lively colours in dynamic relationships are fit – blacks and whites, light greens and yellows, browns and greys. The result is rhythm, as in a dance – a characteristic theme of Severini’s. However, in this new version of the rhythmic theme he elects not to portray the figure of the dancer, in homage to the avant-garde of the abstract that dominated the international scene before the advent of Informal painting.