Dal platonismo pitagorico al neo-tomismo maritainiano. Gino Severini. Pittura murale nelle chiese della Svizzera romanda (1924-1934)

The essay, which is part of a broader and more extensive research undertaken by the Institute of Art History of the Catholic University of Milan around Spiritual in art in Italy between the wars, reflect on the specific contributions of Gino Severini in his monumental work of fresco. Severini has been engaged for about a decade, from 1923 to 1934, to the painted decoration of some churches in western Switzerland: five series of paintings that mark a connection path between painting and architecture, developing the concept of representation, and of the problematic meaning of sacred art in a deepening context generated by the encounter and friendship with the philosopher Jacques Maritain and his circle. From there on he returns to religious faith and to the real commitment to transmit it through the work of painter to plug it in the older iconographic tradition of the Italian primitives without sacrificing the achievements of cubist and futurist avant-garde. The assay is based on a very large first-hand documentation found and made available to scholars that regard the little known story of the artistic path of this first magnitude Italian artist.