The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (442 page)

Severe style
.
A term applied to the style characteristic of much Greek sculpture in the period
c.
480 BC-
c.
450 BC, transitional between the
Archaic
and
Classical
periods. Winckelmann had used the term ‘severe’ of work of the time before
Phidias
, but the term ‘Severe style’ did not come into general usage until Vagn Poulsen's book
Der strenge Stil
l of 1937. The characteristics of the Severe style include simplicity and severity of form, grandeur and elevation of spirit, and an increase in characterization compared with the Archaic period.
Myron
is the best-known sculptor of the period, but his work is sometimes described as early Classical rather than severe.
Severini , Gino
(1883–1966).
Italian painter. In 1906 he settled in Paris, and he played an important role in transmitting the ideas of French avant-garde art to the
Futurists
, whose
Technical Manifesto of Painting
he signed in 1910. His work was strongly influenced by
Cubism
(he knew
Braque
and
Picasso
) and he concerned himself with the problem of conveying a sense of movement and action by breaking up his picture space into contrasting and interacting rhythms (
Suburban Train Arriving in Paris
, Tate, London, 1915). He was influenced by theories of mathematical proportion and in 1921 published a book on the subject,
Du Cubisme au Classicisme
. In the 1920s his style became more traditional and he carried out several decorative commissions, including murals for churches in Switzerland. He also worked as a theatrical designer. Severini returned to Italy in 1935, but in 1946 he settled in Paris again. In the later 1940s his style once again became semi-abstract.
Sezession
.
Name adopted by several groups of painters in Germany and Austria who in the 1890s broke away (‘seceded’) from the official academies, which they regarded as tradition-bound, and organized their own, more avant-garde exhibitions. The first of these groups came together in Munich in 1892, its leading members being Franz von Stuck (1863–1928) and Wilhelm Trübner (1851–1917), and there were Sezessionen also in Vienna (1897), with Gustav
Klimt
as first President, and Berlin (1899), with Max
Liebermann
as first President. When in 1910 a number of young painters were rejected by the Berlin Sezession—among them members of Die
Brücke
—they started the Neue Sezession, with Max
Pechstein
a prominent figure.
Sezessionstil
.
Sforza
.
Italian family, the effective rulers of Milan from 1450, when the
condottiere
Francesco
(1401–66) seized power, until 1499 when his son
Lodovico
(1452–1508)—the third to succeed him—was expelled by the French. During that time they were lavish patrons of the arts, and the court of Lodovico (who was known as ‘II Moro ’—the Moor—because of his dark complexion) was one of the most splendid in Europe. The greatest artists to work for him were
Bramante
and
Leonardo da Vinci
.

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