Savognino d'inverno, 1890 Courtesy METS Percorsi d’arte, Novara
Savo­gni­no d’in­ver­no, 1890 Cour­te­sy METS Per­cor­si d’arte, Novara

All the colors of the snow*

Alpi­ne win­ter land­scapes by Gio­van­ni Segan­ti­ni, Gio­van­ni Gia­co­metti, Edo­ar­do Ber­ta and their Ita­li­an Divi­sio­nist colleagues

10 Decem­ber 2024 — 20 April 2025
Ver­nis­sa­ge: Sun­day, Decem­ber 15, 5:30 p.m.
Admis­si­on is free. An ape­ri­tif will be offered.

 

The asso­cia­ti­on “Che­sas da cul­tu­ra Engi­a­di­na” is orga­ni­zing a joint exhi­bi­ti­on from May 2024 to April 2025, fea­turing 14 cul­tu­ral insti­tu­ti­ons (muse­ums, artists’ stu­di­os, libra­ri­es and archi­ves) from the Upper Enga­di­ne. The over­ar­ching the­me, “Sple­ndur e sum­bri­va – Light and Shadow in the Enga­di­ne”, will be inter­pre­ted and pre­sen­ted dif­fer­ent­ly in each of the indi­vi­du­al insti­tu­ti­ons, depen­ding on their focus.
The sum­mer exhi­bi­ti­on at the Segan­ti­ni Muse­um (20.5.–20.10.2024) focu­sed on a group of litt­le-known ear­ly works by Segan­ti­ni, crea­ted from 1879 to 1881, in which the artist pro­ved to be a bold expe­ri­men­ter in his search for most­ly astoun­ding light effects, achie­ved pri­ma­ri­ly through stron­gly accen­tua­ted light-dark contrasts.
In kee­ping with the sea­son, the win­ter exhi­bi­ti­on focu­ses on snow, a motif that has inspi­red pain­ters sin­ce time immemorial.

Visi­tors have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence Gio­van­ni Segantini’s matu­re win­ter land­scapes in dia­lo­gue with tho­se of some of his con­tem­po­r­a­ri­es on both sides of the Alps. While Gio­van­ni Gia­co­metti from Ber­gell, who was Segantini’s pupil until his death, stu­di­ed the win­ter Alpi­ne light and the colors of the snow in their chro­ma­tic effects and avo­ided any sym­bo­lic glo­ri­fi­ca­ti­on, the sno­wy land­scape in “Fun­e­ra­le bian­co” by Edo­ar­do Ber­ta from Tici­no and in “Da una legen­da alpi­na” by Car­lo Forn­ara from Pied­mont, acqui­res an alle­go­ri­cal value and beco­mes the sub­ject of phi­lo­so­phi­cal reflec­tion. In addi­ti­on to the artists men­tio­ned, the Divi­sio­nists Cesa­re Mag­gi, Ange­lo Mor­bel­li and Giu­sep­pe Pel­liz­za da Vol­pe­do are also repre­sen­ted in the exhi­bi­ti­on. One of the high­lights of the show is Segantini’s Divi­sio­nist mas­ter­pie­ce “Savo­gni­no d’in­ver­no” from 1890, which is rare­ly exhi­bi­ted in Switz­er­land and comes from a pri­va­te collection.

 

*‘All the colours of the snow’ is also the title of a high­ly suc­cessful book by aut­hor Ange­li­ka Overath.