Giano-Culsans: The Double and Gino Severini’s Etruscan Inspiration

The exhibition Giano-Culsans: il doppio e l’ispirazione etrusca di Gino Severini (The Double and Gino Severini’s Etruscan Inspiration) opens on 15 May at the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, dedicated to dualism and the double, in the two-sided relationship, both physical and symbolic of dialectics and contrast. On display are two small bronze Etruscan statues from the 3rd century BC, juxtaposed with two sculptures by Gino Severini – a double within a double.

The exhibition Giano-Culsans: the Double and the Etruscan Inspiration of Gino Severini, set up in the Spazio Bianco on the Piano Nobile of the Art Museum, takes its cue from Gino Severini's (1883-1966) interest in the Etruscan world, and more generally in the archaeology of his homeland, and from his link with Cortona, his native town. An assiduous frequenter of the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca, he was often inspired in his works by the finds preserved in the museum, to which he later donated some of his most significant works.

The first of the two Etruscan bronze statuettes on display, dated 3rd century BC, is Culsans, an Etruscan deity corresponding to the Roman Janus, tutelary deity of doors and passages. C is Culsans, the Etruscan deity corresponding to the Roman Janus, tutelary deity of gates and passages; the second is Selvans, god of the forest and agrarian activities. The two sculptures bear a long votive inscription on their thighs in the Etruscan alphabet, which clarifies their identity by stating the name of the dedicator, perhaps a person who held a public office. Prepared to guard the border between the urban area and the surrounding territory, their positioning on either side of the Cortona city gate certifies the sacred nature of this liminal space, already attested in other centres of ancient Italy.

It is precisely from the Etruscan Culsans that Severini drew inspiration to create the two sculptures on display: the first is Giano Bifronte, a bronze made in the early 1960s, while the second, larger, is a posthumous casting made at the behest of his daughter Romana Severini. The latter sculpture was later donated to the Accademia Etrusca in Cortona.

Fruit of Severini’s prolific painting activity, Still Life with Herring and Blue Bowl was painted in 1946-47 as a reworking, with references to Etruscan culture, of a popular genre among avant-garde painters. It depicts a table with herrings in the foreground, beyond which stand two vases, a pitcher and a bowl with a wide rim, an allusion to the bucchero ware that decorated the banquets of Etruscan aristocrats.

Accompanying the exhibition is a publication published by Fondazione Luigi Rovati, Giano-Culsans: il doppio e l’ispirazione etrusca di Gino Severini with texts by Paolo Bruschetti, Sergio Angori, Romana Severini Brunori, Giulio Paolucci, Paolo Giulierini, Marco Belpoliti and Luigi Donati.

INFORMATION

Giano-Culsans: The Double and Gino Severini’s Etruscan Inspiration

14 May - 15 September 2024

Fondazione Luigi Rovati | Museo d'arte
Corso Venezia 52, Milano

©Gino Severini, By SIAE 2024