The Roland Collection

This film stresses the mystical content that lies behind the Impressionist technique. It displays neither an art-historical nor a documentary approach, but is centered around the artist's paintings, which are of vital interest for our own times, when humankind's relationship with nature is under threat.

For more information see section 24 and section 30

Biographical Details
Giovanni Segantini (1858-99) was an Italian painter with a distinctive style ranging from illusionistic Impressionism to a divisionist or pointillist accumulation of paint touches, creating highly atmospheric effects. In his own time his international reputation was such that he had to retreat ever higher into the desolate Alps to escape the adoring fans who hounded him, and to find the spiritual isolation he sought in nature. Today he is often forgotten, though his work was an important transitional influence on later modern artists such as the American painter Marsden Hartley. With the growing recognition of the diversity of trends and influences within Modernism, Segantini, like other artists of his generation, is gaining new respect among viewers.