BERKELEY
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
. CALIFORNIA ^
GIOVANNI
SEGANTINI
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
SORROA\' COMFORTED BY FAITH.
GIOVANNI
SEGANTINI
BY
L:VILLARI
THE STORY OF HIS
LIFE TOGETHER
WITH SEVENTY FIVE
REPRODUCTIONS
OF HIS PICTURES
IN HALF TONE AND
PHOTOGRAVURE
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1901
LOAR STACK
All Ri,i<hls Rescired.
/V
CONTENTS
^
CHAP.
I.— EARLY LIFE A\D STRUGGLES
PAGE
I
H. — IN THE BRIANZA
III. — THE PAINTER OF THE ALPS. — AT SAVOGNLVO
28
56
IV. — SEGANTINI THE MAN : LETTERS AND WRITINGS
102
V. — SEGANTINl'S SYMBOLISM : HIS DEATH
161
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SORROW COMFORTED BY FAITH Frontispiece.
TO FACE PAGE
STILL LIFE. — TURKEY 2
STILL LIFE. — GOOSE 4
SACRED ART 6
DEAD HERO 9
SILKWORMS 10
BRIANZA PIPERS 12
IDYLL 13
THE LAST TASK OF THE DAY 15
ONE MORE 17
IN THE SHEEPFOLD 18
A KISS BY THE FOUNTAIN 20
TWO MOTHERS 22
ORPHANS 25
SLEEPING SHEPHERD 28
MOONLIGHT EFFECT 30
LITTLE SHEEP 35
bird's NEST . 38
ON THE ALPS AFTER A STORM ....... 39
SAD HOURS 41
A PRAYER TO THE CROSS 42
" AVE MARIA A TRASBORDO " 44
THE BLESSING OF THE SHEEP {St. Sebastian's Day) ... 45
SHEEP-SHEARING 46
THE POTATO HARVEST 49
EARLY MASS 50
AT THE TETHER 53
DUN COW 58
THE RETURN FROM THE WOOD 60
AT SAVOGNINO 62
COW DRINKING 65
ON THE BALCONY 69
REST IN THE SHADE 71
COWS UNDER THE YOKE 73
THE RETURN TO THE SHEEPFOLD 75
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
KNITTING 77
HAYMAKING 8o
PLOUGHING IN THE ENGADINE 83
ALPINE PASTURES 84
SPRING PASTURES 86
SPRING IN THE ALPS 88
ALPINE LANDSCAPE 92
THE SPINNING-WHEEL 94
MOTHERS 96
MY MODELS 98
TOBOGANNING 100
PORTRAIT OF SEGANTINI BY HIMSELF 102
THE CHILD OF LOVE 105
A ROSE LEAF 107
MORNING HOURS I09
LOVE AT THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE 112
THE ANGEL OF LIFE II7
THE SOURCE OF EVIL 120
THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY 122
THE UNNATURAL MOTHERS {first VCrsioil) 1 29
THE UNNATURAL MOTHERS {sCCOud VCYSiou) I33
THE HOME-COMING 135
PORTRAIT OF CARLO ROTTA 139
PORTRAIT OF SEGANTINI BY HIMSELF 142
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY 145
THE SOWER 150
MIDDAY ON THE ALPS 156
COW IN A FARMYARD 1 59
THE ANNUNCIATION 163
THE TRIPTYCH 167
FIRST PANEL OF THE TRIPTYCH : LIFE . . . . . . 169
SECOND PANEL OF THE TRIPTYCH : NATURE 1 74
THIRD PANEL OF THE TRIPTYCH I DEATH 1 77
CARTOON OF THE FIRST PANEL 1 79
CARTOON OF THE SECOND PANEL 182
CARTOON OF THE THIRD PANEL 188
CARTOON OF THE LUNETTE OVER THE MIDDLE PANEL— ST.
MORITZ BY NIGHT 190
MEDALLION FROM THE TRIPTYCH I ALPENROSE .... 194
MEDALLION FROM THE TRIPTYCH : EDELWEISS .... 202
SEGANTINl'S HEAD (AFTER DEATH) BY SIGNOR GIACOMETTI . . 205
PREFATORY NOTE
IN publishing this Life of Giovanni Segantini, I
must sincerely thank the various ladies and
gentlemen whose kind help in furnishing me with
letters and other material has enabled me to write
it. I am extremely grateful to Signor Alberto
Grubicy, of Milan, who was most useful in giving me
access to much interesting matter; to Signora " Neera,"
of Milan, who lent me a large number of unpublished
letters ; to Signora Segantini, the artist's widow ; to
Signor Diego Martinelli ; to Signor Vittorio Pica ; to
Signor Primo Levi, who kindly allowed me to translate
many letters and other writings of Segantini's which
he had published in the Rivista d' Italia; to Dr.
Steffans, of Freiburg, who supplied me with some
interesting information about the artist's ideas and
opinions ; to Signor Orvieto, of Florence ; and to Dr.
Oscar Bernhard, of Samaden, who attended the artist
during his last illness.
I must also make my acknowledgments to the
various writers whose publications I have made use
of and quoted : —
Signor Luca Beltrami, in the Nuova Antologia,
November i6, 1899.
Signor E. Bermani's " Commemorazione di Giovanni
Segantini," Milano, 1899.
Signor Tommaso Bresciani's "Giovanni Segantini,"
Arco, 1899.
PREFATORY NOTE
Mr. Burnley Bibb, in The Studio, August i6, 1897.
Herr W. Fred's "Giovanni Segantini," Wien, 1901,
and also in The Artist, November, 1898.
Signor Primo Levi, in La Rivista d' Italia, Novem-
ber and December, 1899.
Signora " Neera," in the Emporium, March, 1896.
Signor Ugo Ojetti in the Nuova Antologia, October
16, 1899.
Herr Peltzer, in Die Kunst fiir A lie (Miinchen),
April I, 1900,
Herr William Ritter's "Giovanni Segantini," Wien,
1897, and also in La Gazette des Beaux Arts,
April I, 1898.
M. Robert de la Sizeranne, in the Revue des Deux
Mondes, April 15, 1898, and in the Revue de
r Art, November 10, 1899.
Le Comte de Soissons, in The Dome, April 15, 1899.
Signor Tumiati, in L Arte (Roma), 1898.
Herr Wolter, in Die Kunst filr A lie, April i, 1900.
Miss Helen Zimmern, in The Magazine of Art,
November, 1896.
Signor Ettore Zoccoli's "Giovanni Segantini," Milano,
1900.
I have also obtained information from various articles
in the Marzocco (Firenze), by Signori Tumiati, Orvieto,
Ojetti, and Signora " Neera," and from one or two
anonymous articles in other publications.
L. VILLARI
London, July 29, 1901
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE AND STRUGGLES
MODERN Italian art has hitherto attracted
but little attention beyond the Alps. In
most of the international art exhibitions
a certain number of pictures by Italian
artists have been seen, sometimes admired, sometimes
severely criticised, but more often passed by in silence.
The countless travellers who year by year visit Italy
are too much absorbed by the natural beauties of the
country on the one hand, and by the masterpieces of
ancient art on the other, to take any interest in the works
of contemporary painters ; the more so as but few
among them present any very striking characteristics.
But within the last ten or fifteen years, in Paris, in
London, in Berlin, in Vienna, and in the other great
centres of artistic life, some strange pictures by a young
and unknown Italian artist from time to time have made
their appearance. What struck one most at first sight
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
in these paintings was their subjects. They usually
represented mountain scenes — blue-green glaciers, vast
glistening snowfields, masses of rock, skies of an intense
blue, and foregrounds sometimes of brilliant green
sprinkled with flowers, sometimes covered with snow.
There were also houses and huts, figures of peasants,
cattle, and sheep ; but the living things and man's
handiwork were but the elements of the composition,
and not the central idea. Sometimes a symbolic ten-
dency was noticeable, and weird figures — half-human,
half-fantastic — arose from the glaciers and rocks to
express some allegorical idea. The living things and
the houses had been painted before, but the snow
and the mountains were novelties even for the veteran
connoisseur.
Hitherto such subjects had never been attempted
with any degree of success. The feeble productions of
Calame had destroyed Switzerland and the high Alps for
the artist, and no self-respecting painter dared to go to the
mountains for inspiration. That region was left to the
amateur water-colourist and the sentimental young lady.
Tell's Chapel, Mont Blanc with the Lake of Geneva in the
foreground, Chillon, the towers of Lucerne, the Alps from
Berne, were usually chosen by artists of this class, with
the result we all know. Occasionally a good sketch was
painted : a picture never. But here was a man who had
the courage to paint the high Alps and who evidently
knew what he was about while doing so, and whose
2
STII.I, LIl-]'; TUKKICY.
\To face /.. 2.
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
works began to attract the attention and arouse the
interest of the world of art. It was practically a new
world that he had discovered for the artist, a new
atmosphere, and a new method of painting, for the
strange singularity of the subject required nothing less.
This artist was Giovanni Segantini. For many years
he had lived and worked in obscurity, then he began to
be known, criticised, admired. He was discussed in the
artistic coteries and salons both of Italy and of other
countries. But he still continued to live the life of a
hermit among the scenes that he painted. Scarcely had
he sprung into fame when he died. He died at his work,
among the eternal snows of the Engadine, painting at
8,000 feet above the sea level. Since then he has been
studied with still greater zest, and his life has proved to
be no less curious and full of interest than his pictures.
He was a recluse by nature. In another age he would
have joined a religious order : he might perhaps have
been one of the saints of the desert. He knew hardly
anything of other artists. The works of the old masters,
and those of the modern schools, were a sealed book to
him, consequently, his work is above all things original,
for he was entirely free from the influence of others.
In his earlier years Segantini's subjects were not so
unusual — scenes of peasant life and lowly toil, for he him-
self was born among peasant folk, and after a few years
at Milan he returned to the soil and led the same life as
his subjects ; but with his training, or rather with the
3
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
want of it, he could not fail to treat even these scenes in
an original manner. As his art developed he wandered
further afield, and climbed ever higher up the mountains,
where he found new subjects. First he settled at
Savognino, in the Orisons, and then he went higher still
to the Maloja. Every stage of his upward progress
marks a stage of his artistic development. The higher
he climbed, the surer became his touch, the more power-
ful his imagination. It is as a painter of the Alps that
he will be remembered, for, having discovered a new
subject, he discovered a new technique that was suited
to it. His last work, the great triptych for the Paris
Exhibition of 1900, was the apotheosis of his art, for it
summed up every form of life and every aspect of nature
in the high Alps. It was his swan song ; but he never
finished it, for he died while at work on it on the
Schafberg.
Who was Giovanni Segantini? Whence did he
come ? What manner of man was he, and how did he
live ? To answer these questions is the object of this
memoir.
Giovanni Segantini was born on June 15, 1858,
at Arco, in the Trentino, near the Lake of Garda.
Technically he was an Austrian subject, but, like all the
inhabitants of that part of the Tirol, he was an Italian
by race, language, and character. Moreover, not having
served his term in the Austrian army he lost his Austrian
4
STILL Lll'T-; GOOSIi.
[To face p. 4.
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
citizenship. His father was a carpenter, and belonged to
one of those peasant families that in the Middle Ages had
brought forth soldiers, and in the present day provide
good farmers. His mother was of the lower bourgeoisie.
She helped to eke out the family's small income by
selling fruit and vegetables. They lived in a little
tumble-down house with dilapidated doors and windows,
situated at the head of the bridge over the roaring Sarca.
The village of Arco is dominated by ruins of an old castle
rising on a precipitous crag. Around are high dolomite
peaks, shooting upwards like sharp needles. They are of
bright colours — red, crimson, rich brown, at sunset tinged
with gold. To the south the valley gradually opens out
towards the blue waters of the Lago di Garda. This
country is, like
Caledonia stern and wild,
Fit nurse for a poetic child.
Segantini, in fact, passed the first five years of his
life amidst these surroundings, and they did not fail
to influence him, for he was to become the painter of
the Alps.
He was born into the world delicate and weakly, so
that it was thought necessary to have him christened by
the nurse on the very day of his birth **ob periculum
vitae." It was only with difficulty and with constant
care that his life was saved, although in after years,
owing to the healthy existence he led, he became as
strong as a young Hercules.
5
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
Again, at a very early age he ran serious danger from
an accident, described by himself in picturesque language.
" One day," he wrote, "when I was about four years
old, I was crossing a narrow little bridge over a mill
stream which worked several flour mills, leading to some
dye-works. Another boy, a little bigger than myself,
was crossing the bridge in the opposite direction to draw
water ; so we met half way. He bent down to fill his
pitcher from the stream ; the bridge was narrow, and he
knocked up against me so that I fell in. I remember
being carried down under a stone bridge ; the stream was
rapid ; beyond the bridge there were some washerwomen
along the bank : I can still see them with their arms
upraised and their scared faces, shrieking madly. When-
ever my head rose above the waters I saw my cap, a red
woollen cap which my mother had made ; and lastly I
saw the great wheel of my godfather's mill looming ever
nearer. When I again opened my eyes a brilliant white
light struck me: it was the sun beating on our garden
wall. In the blue sky the larks were singing. This too I
remember well, that a man with long legs was carrying
me on his shoulders towards home (I afterwards heard
that he was a Jciger, who happening to pass by the
bridge had thrown himself into the water to save me,
for which act of bravery he received a reward from the
Austrian Government). Many women were around me.
When I got home I was put to bed and wrapped up in
blankets. The following evening, after having slept and
6
SACK]:U ART
7\) face f. (i
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
perspired much, I awoke and looked around. My father
and mother were near me, and when they saw that I was
looking at them, they began to cry."
It is interesting to note in this fragment of recollec-
tions, that even when a child that which always impressed
him most was light and colour, to the study of which he
was afterwards to devote his life. In a further bit of
autobiography relating to his early years in Milan the
same tendency is observable.
When Segantini was about five years old his mother,
who had never recovered from his birth, died. Her he
remembered vividly, and in after years maternal love
became one of his favourite subjects. This note is to be
found in many of his pictures, both in those of the
Brianza period and in his Alpine compositions. The
love of the mother for her living child, the mother
weeping over her dead child's grave, the cow's love for
her calf, and the sheep's love for her lamb, Segantini has
painted over and over again, perhaps with a feeling of duty
and of paying the debt which he owed his own mother
for having even unwittingly been the cause of her death.
"I see her," he wrote, "with my mind's eye, her tall
figure, her languid gait. She was beautiful, not like the
sunrise or midday, but like the sunset in spring. When
she died she was twenty-nine years old. . . . My father
was about twenty years older than she, who was his
third wife."
In 1863, when Giovanni was five years old, after his
7
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
mother's death, his father shut up his business at Arco
and went with him to Milan, where he had another son
and daughter by his first wife, with the intention of
settHng there. The elder son kept a small perfumer's
shop, while the daughter looked after the house, the two
just managing to keep body and soul together. But
things were going badly, and the shop had to be closed,
and most of the furniture sold. Then Segantini's father
and brother left Milan and emigrated to America in the
hope of finding better luck. They never returned.
Giovanni, by that time just turned six, remained behind
with his half-sister. "And here," he says, "begins my
own personal life, now happy and now wretched, but
never all of one tone, for even sadness and sorrow did
not make me altogether unhappy."
His was a lonely life indeed, for his sister had to be
out all day at her work, leaving her little brother alone in
the two tiny rooms which they occupied in a wretched
tenement in the Via San Simone. He never even saw the
other dwellers on the same floor.
"The windows of the two little rooms in which we
lived were very high up, so that even if I stood up on the
table I could see nothing but the sky " — the dull, leaden
sky of a Milanese winter, which is no less dreary
and depressing than that of London in December.
"Therefore I did not like being alone: I was often
seized with an indefinable fear ; and then I would flee
down a narrow passage to the landing, where I could see,
8
i)i:ai) iii;r().
[To face p. 9-
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
through a square window, a broad vista of roofs and
steeples, and down below a little courtyard, shut in, and
deep as a well. I remained at that window all the
endless days of many months ; and for a time I was
always waiting for father, who had told me that he would
soon come back, but I never saw him again. On
rainy or sunny days I was always sad, but resigned : I
did not yet understand if this life was going to last for
ever or was to end at once. When the church bells
rang out festive peals my breathing came quicker and
my soul was tortured. What was I thinking of? I do
not know ; but I felt deeply. I suffered, but I did not
know sorrow."
The deadly monotony and loneliness of those early
years is undoubtedly responsible for the note of sadness
that is present in almost all Segantini's pictures. But
this solitary life was not altogether uncongenial to
him, for even in after years he always kept aloof from
the world, and lived only among his peasants, his
mountain folk, and his peaks. The love of solitude
was ingrained in his nature.
His amusements, as may well be imagined, were
few, and such as they were he had to make them for
himself. "One day, I know not how, I got hold of
some paper, I think it was a book. I played with it
for a little : then I tore it up into small pieces, ever
smaller and smaller, like snow-flakes. And I had an
idea. From the window of the landing I began to
9
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
throw the little bits into the court below. This game
amused me. Those little white things danced and
gambolled in the air, rested gently on the sills of the
windows, descended slowly to the ground like living
people who w^ere afraid of hurting themselves. After I
had been amusing myself thus for a few minutes I heard
a terrible voice as of a man in anger rise up from below.
I did not understand what he said, as he spoke in
dialect ; but I gathered from his tone that he did not
approve of my game; when he ceased,' and I thought
that he had gone, I threw out my whole store of bits of
paper. Then a wonderful thing happened ; the snow-
storm spread out and for a moment hid the little court.
I leaned over the window-sill to enjoy the spectacle, and
I followed the white cloud with my eyes as it danced
down to the ground. Suddenly I noticed a man with a
broom looking up at me." The end of the matter was
that the child was severely thrashed, first by the porter
and then, on her return, by his sister. The next
morning she locked him up in his room and took the key
away in her pocket.
'T cried a little; then I noticed a large box in a corner
of the room. I opened it ; it was full of a thousand
different things — female attire, ribbons, old gloves, some
domino masks, and at the bottom a lot of cassia sticks,
which I put aside with the mask to play with. The
mask was what I had longed for. I had wanted to have
one ever since I was at Arco, but I wanted a large,
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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
whole, coloured, living mask like some which I had seen
and which had frightened me. Still I was content with
this half mask, and I put it on. But it was too large
and I could not see properly ; I went to a looking-glass
and, oh, horror ! I tore it off and looked at it. I cast it
back into the box ; I tried not to think of it, and sat
down to play with the sticks. Still I soon tired of them,
and not having anything to do I was seized with a
strange fear. A mouse crossed the room and I became
more afraid. I opened the box again to put back the
cassia sticks, and I saw the mask with one glittering eye
staring at me. I dropped the lid, I did not scream, but
my heart beat violently ; I ran to the door and it was
locked. Then I pushed a chair near the table and
climbed on to the latter, looked out of the window at
the sky, and sang at the top of my voice.
" When I stopped singing I felt dreadfully lonely,
and very thirsty. I made an effort, and turned to look
at the jug ; but the room seemed dark, and filled with
shadows. I again turned my head and tried to sing, but
I had no more the will nor the power to do so. I
remained thus for a long time, suffering from thirst and
fear, thinking of the time when my father used to take
me about in the town and in the public gardens, and buy
me fruit. These memories made me cry, and I cried a
great deal. It was dusk. I no longer gazed at the sky,
but I leaned my head against the wall, half asleep. . . .
When my sister returned, I was asleep on the table.
II
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
She woke me up ; at first I was scared, then I under-
stood, recognised her, threw my arms round her neck,
and cried, begging her not to shut me up again. When
she had lit a light, and saw the disorder I had made, she
scolded me, and opened the box to put back the things.
I at once looked at the mask, which was still there with
its glittering eye. My sister took it up, and threw it on
the bed, to tidy up the things in the box ; then I saw
that what had frightened me was only a steel buckle
shining through one of the eye-holes.
" The next day the door was left open, but I was
ordered not to leave the room. This I promised not to
do ; but I did not keep my promise. A few days later I
was again established on the landing, as before ; but I
threw nothing out of the window. Day followed day in
monotonous succession. One morning, when I was
returning from buying our food — for my sister had
taught me, not without difficulty, to do her these little
services — I saw on the landing and in the passage several
vessels and pails, brushes, and colours. The sight of
these unexpected and unusual objects aroused in me a
lively excitement. It was a feeling of joy mixed with
uneasiness — joy at the novelty of the things, uneasiness
at their unknown nature. I asked myself the whole
morning, what will happen? What will be done with
those things? And I ate but little. Then, when my
sister left, I went out to watch, and stopped in a corner,
seeing a tall man, who, with a large brush, was painting
12
GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
the wall over and over again with white paint. I looked,
but it did not amuse me at all : the result did not answer
to the excitement of expectation. I was disappointed.
Seeing the colours in the pots and papers, I thought that
something more interesting might be done with them."
This curious excitement at the sight of paints and
brushes aroused in a child who was quite ignorant of
their uses is highly significant.
*' But it was not yet over ; after the whitewash the tall
man began to draw lines up and down ; and the next day
with half a potful of red paint dissolved in water and a
big sponge which he dipped into it now and again, he
began to dab the walls, leaving only the ceiling white and
the wainscot of a dark even colour. I watched this part
of the work with the liveliest interest ; after a time I got
used to the splashes of colour, for I must confess that at
first I was not satisfied with them, and that they actually
repelled me. But after gazing at them for some time I
began to see something in them ; there was an Austrian
soldier, his body bending forward, with long arms,
beating a big drum ; this was on a cart drawn by a large
dog ; but no, it was not a cart, it was a bridge, and a man