From 1921, Gino Severini developed a figurative form of expression that he described as ‘realistic’. Nonetheless, this work, based on a photograph, depicts Severini posed in a space without any apparent semblance of reality. He is holding his pigeon Don Glu-Glu in one hand while seated in front of him are his wife Jeanne with an open newspaper and his daughter Gina. The deep melancholy of the family members and the dark palette possibly prefigure the sinister period of fascism. The gravity and frozen expressions of the figures evoke the early medieval mosaics of Ravenna and the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. (http://www.i-am-here.eu/en/gallery.html)