Bet­ween Milan and Malo­ja — the signi­fi­can­ce of light and shadow in the work of the young rea­list and the matu­re sym­bo­list Segantini

Sum­mer exhi­bi­ti­on: 20 May — 20 Octo­ber 2024

Ver­nis­sa­ge on June 22 at 17:30

 

From May 2024 to April 2025, the ‘Che­sas da cul­tu­ra Engi­a­di­na’ asso­cia­ti­on is sta­ging a one year group exhi­bi­ti­on invol­ving 14 Upper Enga­din cul­tu­ral insti­tu­ti­ons (muse­ums, artists’ stu­di­os, libra­ri­es and archi­ves). The indi­vi­du­al insti­tu­ti­ons, which spe­cia­li­se main­ly in the field of art and cul­tu­ral histo­ry, will each pre­sent the over­all the­me of the exhi­bi­ti­on, ‘Sple­ndur e sum­bri­va — light and shadow in the Enga­din’, in a spe­ci­fic way accor­ding to their specialisation.

 

Gio­van­ni Segan­ti­ni (1858–1899) is famous as a pain­ter of moun­tain land­scapes and in par­ti­cu­lar as an evo­ker of inten­se Alpi­ne light. Less well known is the fact that his inte­rest, inde­ed his pas­si­on, for expe­ri­men­ting with light effects and phe­no­me­na is alre­a­dy evi­dent in his ear­liest works and ser­ves as a com­mon thread throug­hout his oeuvre.

Part of the sum­mer exhi­bi­ti­on at the Segan­ti­ni Muse­um is the­r­e­fo­re dedi­ca­ted to a group of ear­ly works, rare­ly exhi­bi­ted and the­r­e­fo­re litt­le known, crea­ted from 1879 to 1881, which depict both lumi­nous views of the Milan of the Navigli and evo­ca­ti­ve dark inte­ri­ors, such as the Ante­room of the Con­vent (1880) or The Choir of the Church of San­t’An­to­nio in Milan (1879).

In the­se lat­ter pain­tings in par­ti­cu­lar, Segan­ti­ni shows hims­elf to be a dar­ing expe­ri­men­ter in the search for sur­pri­sing light effects: he con­fronts view­ers with inte­ri­ors immer­sed in dark­ness, with sud­den and mys­te­rious flas­hes of light, with a ten­den­cy to stron­gly accen­tua­te the con­trasts of light and shadow.

Along­side this group of works from the Mila­ne­se crea­ti­ve pha­se, the sum­mer exhi­bi­ti­on will show pain­tings and gra­phic works from the late Savo­gni­ni and Enga­di­ne peri­od, in which Segan­ti­ni pro­ved hims­elf an abso­lu­te mas­ter in the ren­de­ring of high moun­tain light, while attri­bu­ting no less sym­bo­lic signi­fi­can­ce to dark­ness, twi­light and shadows.