that suggests a certain idea. But all these single beauties
are but the petals of the flower ; for a work of art to be
complete, all these qualities should be there, united in
one harmonious whole."

Although some of the pictures of the *' Spring" series
were painted after Segantini had left Savognino and had
settled in the Maloja, we have discussed them together
because they all belong to this first period of his Alpine
manner. Even if " Spring Pastures " was actually
painted at the Maloja it has a far more intimate
connection with the other works of the series than with
the purely symbolical compositions of the last phase.
Hence we have followed this order.

M. de la Sizeranne has called Segantini the Nansen
of the Alps ; but the artist has done even more than
the explorer in this instance : for the latter failed to
reach the North Pole, while Segantini has discovered
the secret of natural beauty in the Alps, and how to
paint it.

Another picture which Segantini painted while at
Savognino is a sort of return to his Brianza style, or

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



rather to his Brianza subjects ; for the treatment is
similar to that of the other works executed in the
Alpine period. It is called " The Return to the
Sheep-fold." A girl is leading a small flock of sheep
into the fold. Another flock has preceded her, and is
already inside, near the barn. It is evening, and the
day's work is done. The sheep here are drawn with
extreme care and attention to detail, for they — like all
things in this rarefied air — are seen more distinctly
than in the low and sultry Brianza. The last rays of
the sinking sun, as in ** At Savognino," are reflected
in the windows of the cottages, while the rest of the
picture is in a subdued grey light. The head of the
shepherdess is bent forward in the old way, expressive
of lassitude and of a longing for rest. Although we
cannot see them, there is a feeling of the mountains —
we know that they are there behind that ridge on the
right. Segantini was a past master in suggesting
things and ideas that he did not actually portray.
Here he suggests the mountains, as Bocklin suggests
the burning plain beyond the wall, in his " Temple
Grove." *

Other pictures of analogous subjects were painted
about the same time, and, among others, there is a
series of interiors. The artist's idea was to represent
the long, dark winter by painting the life of the
peasants, and of their flocks and herds, in gloomy

* In the Bale Museum.

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



stables and barns. One picture is "The Sheep-fold" —
a girl, seated on a rough bench, watching a flock of
sheep in a fold. Her expression is one of dreary
thought, almost of hopelessness. The dark interior is
feebly illuminated by a small lamp, and some of the
sheep are gazing at their shepherdess with eyes of
wonderment. The same method of indicating the
backs of the sheep with curved lines of light is again
resorted to. The air is heavy and stuffy, everything
is closed, for it is winter outside and deadly cold ;
and this effect is produced by the contrast between
the dark woodwork with the yellow light from the
lamp.

Another is called "At the Spinning-wheel" ("Air
Arcolaio "), and is very similar in treatment. A woman
is at work spinning in a stable by the pale light of a
hanging lantern. A large cow looms in the background,
gazing at her. The chief interest of the composition here
too lies in the contrast of light and shade. The cow, part
of the floor, the outlines of the woman's head and of the
spinning-wheel are lit up ; all the rest is in darkness.
There is the same close, heavy atmosphere, every opening
being hermetically sealed ; animals have to live a life
of darkness for half the year in the Alpine villages, and
human beings are with them for a great part of the time.
We can see the light but not the flame, for that is hidden
by a paper shade. Segantini never painted the actual
flame.

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



The motif of motherhood is once more resumed in
"The Mothers." The scene is again a stable. A mother
is nursing her baby. Before her is the massive form of
the other mother, the cow ; on the ground is the other
child, the calf, asleep. The mother's head is bent forward
in the usual way. Her face and that of her child are lit
up by a hanging lantern. The calf is almost buried in
the litter of straw, but its main outlines are sketched out
in light.

In these three pictures, there is the same look of won-
derment in the animals, and of drowsy torpor in the
human beings. They represent a phase of life in which
the existence of the latter most nearly approaches that of
the former — the long winter sleep. Only the salient
points, illuminated by the feeblest of artificial light, are
seen in the heavy gloom. The whole winter life of the
Alps is depicted in these canvases. We feel that the
white mantle of snow covers everything outside, though
we see it not.

" My Models " is also a study of an interior, but of a
somewhat different character. The scene is the artist's
own studio, at twilight, after his work was done. A
picture — a group of sheep — is seen on an easel ; another
— " Ploughing in the Engadine" — is on the ground. A
girl and a young man are looking at the picture on the
easel. The young man is holding a lantern which
illuminates the picture and part of the floor, and forms a
curious contrast with the grey evening light from the

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window. The girl's face, seen in profile, is brightly lit
by the lantern, while that of the young man is only just
indicated. A corner of the picture on the floor is also in
light, while the rest is in semi-obscurity, the white horses
looming out like ghosts amid their dark surroundings (it
is the first version of *' Ploughing in the Engadine " ; in
the later version, which is the one generally known, the
horses are dark). The contrast of the two different lights,
which seem to be struggling for the mastery, and
chasing each other about, each trying to eclipse the other,
recalls a similar effect in ''The Orphans" ; but here the
effect is even more powerful and telling than in the
earlier picture, owing to the use which Segantini has
made of divisionism. At the same time '' The Orphans "
is a far more charming composition, for in " My Models "
Segantini has put aside the note of sadness, and,
as always happened when he did so, he produced a work
which, in spite of many technical merits, is not c|uite
satisfactory ; it is not the true Segantini. Moreover,
the attitude of the figures is somewhat awkward,
especially that of the girl.

Segantini, as we have said, did not often paint
portraits, but in the few which he has left there is some
of his most interesting work. He had painted some
in his early years, and we have mentioned the one of
Signor Vittore Grubicy. During the Savognino period
he began a series of most curious portraits of himself.
It was one of his weaknesses to paint his own features,

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



in a most strangely idealised fashion. It is Segan-
tini the artist and dreamer that they represent rather
than the actual man. They are usually full-face
portraits, in which the eyes seem staring straight out
of the canvas with a terribly penetrating glance. They
remind one now of some Eastern prophet or mystic,
now of one of those great bearded, long-haired Assyrian
heads that guard the entrance to the sculpture gallery
of the British Museum. Sometimes, again, we seem
to see in the intense gaze and vivid black eyes the
image of the Precursor. The hair and beard is long
and rough ; in some of the portraits it reaches down to
the shoulders. In the background there is occasionally
a view of distant peaks, as though to impress on us that
we are looking on the features of the painter of the Alps ;
these little glimpses of mountains remind one of the
quaint landscapes which the old masters were fond of
putting in the backgrounds of their Holy Families
and Crucifixions. The portraits probably formed the
occupation of some winter's day when the weather was
too bad even for Segantini to paint out of doors.

Savognino was high up — 4,000 feet above the sea ;
but it was not high enough for Segantini. About the
year 1894 he gave up his house at Savognino, and went
up to the Maloja, and there, on the highest point of the
Engadine,* 6,000 feet above the sea, he settled. He
purchased a chalet on the summit of the pass. The spot

* St. Moritz Dorf is a few feet higher, but it is on a hill above the main valley.
The watershed is at the Maloja.

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TOBOGAXIXG.



[To face p. loo.



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



marks the border between the warm, blue valleys of
Northern Italy, and the snowfields and rocky oceans of
the high Alps. There he lived with his wife and his four
children for five years more, leading a quiet, happy, and
laborious life. There, after his long study of nature in
the Brianza and at Savognino, he was to develop that
new phase of his art, strange, much-discussed, fantastic,
but, withal, beautiful and original, in which symbolism
predominates. As his migration to the Maloja marks
the last stage of his upward progress in the Alps, so his
symbolism is the last development of his art. With
Dante he might now say : —

lo ritoniai dalla santissim' onda
Rifatto si, come piante novelle
Kinnovellate di novella fronda,
Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.



Id



CHAPTER IV

SEGANTINI THE MAN : LETTERS AND WRITINGS

BEFORE we proceed to review the last and
most complex phase of Giovanni Segantini's
art, let us try to understand what manner of
man he was. His character is best revealed
by his own correspondence.

We have already said that he was quite uneducated :
when we remember what his early life was it will be clear
to us that he could not be otherwise. He only learnt to
read and write comparatively late in life. In one of his
letters, alluding to the first ideas and thoughts of his
early youth (when he was about seventeen years old), he
says : "I should have liked to put down my ideas in
writing, but at that time I did not know how to write my
own name." It is a curious fact that Segantini through-
out his life was never able to spell correctly. His letters
are full of orthographical errors. Words with double
consonants he almost invariably spelt with a single one,

1 02




PORTRAIT OF THI' ARTIST, BY HIMSELF



[To face p. 102.



GIOVANxMI SEGANTINI



and vice versa, and other mistakes are constantly met
with. In the division of words he was most slovenly.
He was well aware of his own shortcomings in this
direction, and would frequently end his letters, par-
ticularly if addressed to people he did not know
intimately, with the postscript. Per donate gli errori.
Weakness in spelling is far more unusual among Italians
than it is among Englishmen, the former, unless quite
uneducated, seldom making mistakes of this sort.
Nevertheless Segantini had many of the qualities that
make a writer. His letters to his friends, and some of
his newspaper articles, especially those on art, are often
full of beautiful and poetic thoughts. His language is
sometimes rough and unpolished, sometimes obscure and
hopelessly involved, and he was fond of using what he
thought were "aesthetic" expressions, without having a
very clear idea of their meaning. He read a good deal
during the long winter evenings, but through want of
education he did not always understand what he read,
and in his writings there is a curious mixture of really
fine ideas and poetic sentiment with unmeaning phrases.
He tried to be a symbolist in language, even before he
became a symbolist in art. He chose his symbols from
nature, and especially from flowers, of which he was
a great lover ; he wrote most touchingly of them.
Mythology and history are hardly ever mentioned in his
letters, nor do they appear in his pictures, for of those
subjects he was entirely ignorant. Among his favourite

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



readings was poetry. " I enjoy reading poetry," he
wrote, " for it is the music of the soul."

Among the philosophic works which he read most
were those of Max Nordau. But it was art and art
criticism which formed the chief topic of his thoughts
and writings. He wrote letters and articles to various
newspapers, in which he expressed his ideas on art, and
his correspondence with his friends is fuU of similar
discussions. He is always more convincing when he
speaks of modern art, and of what the aims and objects
of the artist should be, than when he speaks of the past.
Of the old masters he knew very little, and, strangely
enough, what little he had seen of their work does not
seem to have greatly impressed him. He did not
understand them, and, in fact, he seldom even alludes to
them. Modern painters he knew little better. In the
early stages of his career he was as ignorant of them and
of their work as he was of the old masters, but later his
friends sent him collections of reproductions of their
pictures and many illustrated art publications, with
which his Alpine home was soon filled. The intricacies
of technique, save when he was called upon to defend
or explain his own methods, interested him but slightly.
He devoted his attention as a writer to the ideas and
sentiments and feelings which could be expressed by art,
and on this point his reniarks are intelligent and
instructive. There were in his mind the foundations of
a great thinker, and he realised to a considerable extent

104




THE CHILD OF LOVE.



[To face p. 105.



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



the thoroughly modern combination of philosophical
and artistic power in the same man. The great painters
of the past, especially those of the Renaissance, found
vent for their exuberant energies in sculpture and
architecture ; but among modern artists there is a
tendency towards philosophy and literature. This was
the case with Segantini, who both in his painting and
in his writings was much given to abstract philosophical
ideas. Being first and foremost an artist, what he wrote
may be regarded as a sort of philosophy of art. He felt
the need of expressing himself in writing, and he has
left a considerable number of essay letters on artistic
matters. At one time he co-operated with Signor Grubicy
in the management of the Cronaca d'Arte, a Milanese
weekly review. Unfortunately, however, his power of
language did not always correspond to his power of
thought, and his literary attempts bear witness to a
want of training, both in mind and intellect. Beauty
and wealth of ideas are not wanting, but his diction and
his logic are defective. We subjoin two articles published
in the Cronaca dArte while he was at Savognino as
fair specimens of his literary style.

Letter I.

'• The more I live in art and for art, the more do
I feel the need of expressing myself, not only with
my pictures, but also in writing, to determine the

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



meaning of this word ' art,' at least with reference to
that part of it which more nearly concerns me, i.e.,
painting.

" I have recently seen two definitions of art, that
may serve as a starting point, although they are en-
tirely opposed to each other. Signor Ghisleri wrote :
' In art thought is required, and not nature alone.
Ghisleri is right, but he does not keep to his point.
I think that this idea might be better expressed thus :
That truth which is outside ourselves is not art, it
has not and cannot have any value as art ; it is but
a blind imitation of nature, and could not be anything
else ; hence it is a purely material representation.
Matter should be elaborated by mind if it is to rise
to the form of art which endures.

" Max Nordau, on the other hand, is persuaded
that the only thing that can ensure a lasting value
to a work of art is the blind imitation of nature :
' Certain mannerisms that are characteristic of a par-
ticular artist occasionally please his contemporaries ;
fashion exalts him if he manages to fall in with the
prevailing taste ; but the next generation will laugh at
him as much as the former one admired him, and
the very quality which had been appreciated as a
progressive innovation by his contemporaries, will
be rejected by posterity as misleading. All that the
painter has added of his own, the so-called personal
interpretation, the arbitrary variations, and the com-

io6




A ROSE LEAF.



[To face p. 107.



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



ments on nature, die ; while what he has reproduced
sincerely and truthfully, exactly as he saw it in nature,
lives for ever, and the furthest ages will joyfully
welcome it as a work of art, as a good old friend, as
never-changing nature.'

'* It is indeed true that an ideal which is outside
nature cannot last, but a reality without ideals is realism
without life. Nordau surely alludes to those works
of art in which the artist has reproduced (if we may
use the expression) the soul in the living and perceptible
form, not the artist's own soul, but that of his subject, of
him or of her whom he was reproducing. This form
of art, although impersonal, is nevertheless highly
spiritual, and not a mere material reproduction : matter
was but a means to the end. We almost invariably
find this form of art in portraits painted by the great
masters of all ages, and it is here that they have attained
their greatest power, a portrait being a work which
combines the highest simplicity of means with the
greatest effectiveness in the art of expressing the living
and perceptible form.

"Therefore a work of art can only be expressed in
a living form, either by expressing the personal feeling
of him who created it, or the living sense of nature. . . .
If we wish to discuss art seriously, so as to be well
understood and to avoid all ambiguousness, we must
begin with a short treatise on psychology (nothing less !).
What else is art, beautiful, true, noble art, but the

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



photographic image, the measure that marks the degrees
of the perfection of the human soul ?

"It is not merely by means of the beauty of nature
in the abstract that we can create a work of art. This
creation — that is the exact word — is not possible save
through an impulse of the spirit that in certain conditions
I shall call the human soul. That soul receives from
the nervous system an impression which becomes fixed
in the brain and there fructifies, the true sounding-board
in which all the senses unite in harmony. I should say,
rather, that beauty in nature does not exist save as
an idea of our own. Every day we see different people
passing before the same natural beauties and being very
differently impressed by them : we might in these
different impressions find a scale of infinite gradations,
from horror to repugnance, from indifference to pleasure
and ecstasy. From this we deduce that beauty exists in
nature because we see it and feel it, and the manner and
measure of our feeling are in proportion to our spiritual
capabilities. Thus a work of art being an interpretation
of nature, the more spiritual elements it contains and
reproduces with sentiment and dignity of form, the
further is it removed from the perception of the common
herd. It cannot be appreciated save by those who by
means of long and patient study have succeeded in
raising their spirit to the perception and assimilation
of those spiritual elements.

" The ideal which inspired the artists of the past may

1 08




MORXIXG HOTRS.



[7"o/rtCf p. 109.



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



be summed up in these words of Geibel's : * To render
universal a feeling or an idea of one's own by means of
an artistic presentation, or to reproduce artistically a
universal feeling or idea, by which the artist's soul was
impressed.'

" These two methods have led to the following
results. When the artist wished to render universal an
idea of his own, he had to take into account the intelli-
gence of the masses, and consequently adapt himself to
the tastes of others, that is to say, to the taste of his day.
If, on the other hand, the artist was impressed by an idea
or a feeling that was universal, and he wished to consoli-
date it in an artistic form, he could neither follow the free
impulse of his genius, nor see the idea which had inspired
his work sublime and glittering in its own full brilliancy.
Freedom of form and of personal sentiment disappear,
the ideal impulse of the artist having been quenched,
corrected, and adapted to ideas determined by others.

" Hence these ideals were an obstacle to a higher and
more genuine development of art ; they rose and sank
according to external tastes and impulses ; and it is well
that the modern artist should have freed himself from
every trammel that prevented the genuine manifestation
of his personality.

"After having examined the opinions of others, I shall
now try to define my own thoughts on the ideals of art,
for art without an ideal is but nature without life."

The main idea of this letter is that in art it is

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GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



absolutely necessary to blend realism with idealism.
This was Segantini's theory, and it was also his practice :
on the one hand, even in his most realistic compositions,
such as "Alia Stanga" or some of his pastoral scenes,
there is always a deep and genuine sentiment ; on the
other, in the most fantastic visions of his symbolical
phase, he has painted nature with the most sober
realism.

Letter II.

"Art should reveal sensations that are new to the
spirit of the initiated : the art which leaves the spectator
indifferent has no reason to exist. The suggestiveness of
a work of art is in proportion to the intensity with which
it was felt by the artist in conceiving it, and this is in pro-
portion to the refinement, the purity, as we may call it, of
his feelings. In this way the lightest and most fleeting
impressions are rendered more intense and become fixed
in the brain, moving the higher spirit that synthetises
them, and making it fruitful ; hence comes that
elaboration which translates the artistic ideal into a
living form. To preserve this ideal vision while
executing his work, the artist must summon up all his
powers, so that the initial energy may continue active;
it is a vibration of his nerves which are intent on feeding
the flame, on keeping alive the vision by constantly
recalling it, lest the idea should dissolve or fade, that
idea which should become alive on the canvas, creating

I 10



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



the work that will be spiritually personal and materially
true. Not true in the external, superficial, conventional
sense, which is the stamp of common art, but true in
the sense of that truth, which goes beyond the barriers of
superficial lines and tones, and gives life to form and
light and colour.

"This, then, is realism. It enters into the soul and
becomes part of the idea. The brush sweeps across the
canvas and obeys ; it shows the quivering of the fingers
in which all the nervous vibrations are concentrated ; the
different objects, the beasts, the birds, the human beings
are born, and take shape, light, and life in all their
smallest details. The flame of art is in the artist,
and by means of the tension of his soul it maintains
in him the emotion which he communicates to his
work. Through this emotion the mechanical, toilsome
effort of the artist disappears, and the complete work
of art is created, all of one piece, living, perceptible ;
it is the incarnation of the spirit in matter, it is a
creation.

" Such a picture may produce a feeling of repulsion
when seen for the first time, because of the inherited
tendency to regard a painting and to judge it from
the academical point of view of the skilfulness of
the drawing, of the touch, of the brush strokes.
But once this first impression is overcome and the
old theories and methods are put aside, if the spectator
really tries to understand, a curious and singular,

III



GIOVANNI SEGANTINI



but withal easily explicable, thing will befall him.
The picture which at first repelled him, because it
was obscure and not obviously comprehensible, becomes
gradually clear ; the scene is filled with light, the
planes are thrown back, the figures move and live ;
the feverish passion which the artist felt lights up the
pictures and communicates the same emotion to the
spectator ; everything quickens with real, perceptible,
palpitating light."

[When Segantini wrote these lines he was evidently
thinking of his own pictures, for what he says is per-
fectly applicable to them. Many of us were repelled and