Born in Arco on January 15, 1858, died in Schafberg near Pontresina on October 28, 1899. "The suggestiveness of a work of art is due to the force with which it was felt by the artist in conceiving it, and this is due to the finesse , of the purity, I will say so, of his senses. Thanks to him, the slightest and most fleeting impressions are made more intense and fixed in the brain, moving and fertilizing the higher spirit that synthesizes them; and then the elaboration takes place, which translates the artistic ideal into a living form. To preserve this ideal mirage during the execution of the work, the artist must appeal to all his forces so that it persists activates the initial energy. It is all a vibration of his nerves intent on feeding the fire, keeping the mirage alive with continuous evocation, so that the idea does not dissolve or wander: the idea that must take shape and life on the canvas, creating the work that will be spiritually personal and materially true. So the truth is there! It enters the soul and is part of the idea. The brush runs on the canvas and obeys: it shows the trembling of the fingers in which all nervous vibrations are collected: objects, animals, people are born, and in all the smallest details they take shape, life, light. The focus of art is in the artist, keeping in a tension of spirit that emotion that he communicates to his work. For this emotion the mechanical, tiring work of the artist disappears, and the complete work of art is produced, fused in a single piece, alive, sensitive. It is the embodiment of the spirit in matter, it is creation ....>. So thought and wrote Giovanni Segantini, the most Italian, the greatest of the great painters of the nineteenth century, who lived a short and very industrious life, during which misfortunes and pains abounded. He was taken to Milan, at the age of five, after the death of his mother. His father gave him to a sister, who was also unfortunate, and he never showed up again. The abandoned little one lived alone for two years, locked in the attic, because his aunt was always out of the house, busy until late in the evening. One day he fled to the countryside until he fell exhausted. He was picked up by a good farmer in the night as the hurricane raged. From that day on he became a guardian of beasts. Thus he grew up among his humble protectors of himself, happy to draw animals and figures on the earth. One day he tried to portray a dead girl and he succeeded so evidently as to arouse the wonder of his benefactors who sent him to Milan to study at the Brera Academy. Later, at the beginning of his artistic career, he opened a studio in Milan; but having outlined his possibilities and maturing his temperament, he decided to settle in the countryside to be more in contact with nature. He was first in Brianza, then in Savorgnin in the Grisons, lastly on the Maloja, and he painted all that wonderful series of canvases ranging from Alla stanga (located in the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome) to the Triptych (intended for the Exhibition of the Salone of Paris) which death prevented him from completing. From the realism of his first works, through a slow evolution, he passed to the symbolism of the last ones, and from the inspiration to Millet's painting he reached a personal invoice based on the divisionism of color, conceived with high ideality, and summed up with profound accents of humanity. The most significant works left by Segantini and which over time will demonstrate or confirm his great value are: The Angel of Life; The kiss at the fountain; The two mothers; Goddess of love; Head of a woman and the portrait of Mrs. Gaetana Oriani, all exhibited in the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan; Alpe di Maggio, in the collection of Mrs. Corinna Trossi-Uberti; White cow at the drinking trough, in that of comm. Mario Rossello in Milan; Return to the native country, in the National Gallery of Berlin; The Fruit of Love and the portrait of Carrier Grubicy, both in the Leipzig Museum; Gregge, in the Royal Museum of Brussels; Cows yoked, in the public gallery in Basel; Girl making stockings, in the Coir Museum (Switzerland); Now sad; Cow drinking and Still life, all three in the Neupert Gallery in Zurich; Landscape of Maloia, in the Fischer Gallery in Lucerne; The bad mothers and Alpine pastures, in the Vienna Gallery; The pagan goddess and Galloping Horse, formerly owned by the rag. Benzeni of Milan; Mothers; Dead chamois; My models; Two grazing goats; The lustful ones; On the balcony; The empty cradle, the latter in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Ricci-Oddi »in Piacenza.

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