During the 2022–23 win­ter sea­son, our muse­um will be able to show its public Gio­van­ni Segantini’s won­derful ear­ly work “Il Naviglio a pon­te San Mar­co” (1880), a pain­ting from an Ita­li­an pri­va­te coll­ec­tion. Due to the refi­ned com­po­si­ti­on of the pic­tu­re, the rich­ness of color and the liveli­ne­ss and dyna­mism of the inter­play of light, this work repres­ents an abso­lu­te artis­tic high point in the ear­ly crea­ti­ve pha­se of the 22-year-old pain­ter, who had just finis­hed his trai­ning at the Bre­ra Aca­de­my and was stan­ding “at the very begin­ning of a steep care­er”, says Dia­na Segan­ti­ni, Giovanni’s gre­at-grand­d­augh­ter and pro­found expert on the work of her gre­at-grand­fa­ther. She descri­bes the pain­ting as “a true ray of light in Segantini’s ear­ly work, among the other­wi­se often gloo­my depic­tions of Milan, whe­re he and his part­ner Bice Bug­at­ti lived in poor con­di­ti­ons near the Naviglio.” 

The pain­ting descri­bes a town fair in the pic­tures­que, Vene­ti­an see­ming, now lar­ge­ly dis­ap­peared Milan of the “navigli”, the arti­fi­ci­al canals that once con­nec­ted the city with Lake Mag­gio­re, Lake Como and the Tici­no and Po rivers. Fes­tively dres­sed peo­p­le, most of them women, popu­la­te not only the San Mar­co bridge, the main archi­tec­tu­ral ele­ment of the pic­tu­re, but also the right bank and the second bridge in the back­ground. The cheerful mood, which is rather unu­su­al for Segan­ti­ni, which the neat clo­thes and para­sols as well as the three bal­loons soaring into the sky con­vey to us, is rein­forced by the sun­light, which shi­nes bright and warm on the mason­ry of the bridge, the right bank and the house faca­des on the right half of the pic­tu­re. 

This light in turn owes its inten­si­ty not least to the con­trast with the shadowy are­as on the left half of the pic­tu­re: the vege­ta­ti­on on the canal bank and abo­ve all the dark three-sto­ry buil­ding in the fore­ground and its reflec­tion in the water crea­te an effec­ti­ve coun­ter­ba­lan­ce to the bright ele­ments. On the bridge, which con­nects the sun­ny and the shady banks, women and girls dres­sed in black and bright white, while below them, the right bank wall is struc­tu­red by the rhyth­mic alter­na­ti­on of light and shadow. In addi­ti­on to the­se light-dark con­trasts, Segan­ti­ni also cle­ver­ly uses color and shape repe­ti­ti­ons as com­po­si­tio­nal ele­ments: the blue of the sky and the white gra­di­ent of the light clouds are reflec­ted in the water, as are the dark and oran­ge house faca­des on the left bank, wher­eby the bright oran­ge, the com­ple­men­ta­ry color to blue, finds punc­tu­al equi­va­lents in one of the para­sols and in the front part of the balus­tra­de on the right bank. Effec­ti­ve cor­re­spon­den­ces can also be seen in the lines and shapes of the com­po­si­ti­on: one should pay atten­ti­on to the arch of the front bridge, which forms an almost clo­sed cir­cle with its reflec­tion in the water. This draws our gaze into the depths of the pic­tu­re, whe­re a lar­ge boat and a second bridge repeat the arch shape. 

 The pain­ting “Il naviglio a pon­te San Mar­co” belongs to Segantini’s pre-divi­sio­nism pha­se. Only six years later did the artist begin to deve­lop his per­so­nal pain­ting tech­ni­que and through the sepa­ra­te appli­ca­ti­on of basic and com­ple­men­ta­ry colors in fine, long brush­strokes he achie­ved an ever stron­ger repre­sen­ta­ti­on of light in his crea­ti­ons. With its lumi­no­si­ty, howe­ver, this ear­ly pain­ting, in con­trast to the other works from this pha­se, in which Segan­ti­ni most­ly adopts the dark palet­te of late Roman­ti­cism, anti­ci­pa­tes the lumi­nous effects of Divi­sio­nism and enables the view­er to expe­ri­ence an inten­se, unfor­gettable light expe­ri­ence. 

The Segan­ti­ni Muse­um is hap­py to be able to delight visi­tors with the liveli­ne­ss, light­ness, hap­pi­ness and warmth that “Il naviglio a pon­te San Mar­co” exu­des.