Giovanni Segantini

Giovanni Segantini (1858-99) was an Italian-born Swiss painter whose work, primarily landscapes, was created in and around his home in the Swiss Alps. A pioneer in utilizing divisionist technique, he is revered as most eminent exponents of symbolism. More recently, he has also begun to be acknowledged as an early convert to European modernism, his work poised at the transition from nineteenth-century aesthetics to twentieth-century artistic experimentation.

A long-awaited retrospective, Giovanni Segantini showcases sixty paintings selected from the artist's prolific career. Suffused with light and saturated with color, they feature villages, farmers and shepherds watching over wandering livestock, and idyllic pastoral scenes from the Swiss Alps. Each picture is described in detail with information about the circumstances of its creation. The paintings are accompanied by an introductory essay that examines Segantini's life and work, assessing his reception over more than a century, including his influence on later artists and movements like the futurists and Joseph Beuys. Additional essays bring together the latest research on Segantini's biography, his depictions of nature and the connections between nature and man, his masterful handling of shadow and light, and the divisionist combinations of iconography in Segantini's later works.

With this German language book, Beat Stutzer has compiled the most comprehensive overview of this inventive alpine artist to date, including some paintings that have not been available to the public in many years. It will be welcomed by art historians, collectors, curators, and all with an interest in this period in art.