ARCO/Trento. Purchased to Bow one of the master’s masterpieces Giovanni SegantiniThe famous painter of Arcense origin Between the maximums exponents of divisionism. The work “Sun of autumn” was paid by the Municipality 3 million euros and will become part of the collection of the city of Arco. This was confirmed by the municipal authorities themselves, who speak of a “event extraordinary” for the city. The painting, a large oil on canvas high 90 and wide 192 centimetreswas made in 1887 and exhibited for the first time the same year at the Fifth Exhibition National Belle Arts of Venice.
“The value – writes the Municipality of Arco – it is estimated in Italy at a minimum of 3.5 million eurosbut if placed on the international market (and in particular American) it is thought could arrive at 6.5 million. This is a predictionist painting in which the main subject is given by a yoked cow to a cart that drinks from fountainwhile the peasant who accompanies her yes quenches thirst in turn to same source; the houses of the town appear in the background, Savognino in Switzerlandand one glimpse of meadows that it surround”. The work shows the fundamental role of passage in the evolution of Segantini’s experimentation between the Brianza years and the beginning of the most intense phase of his activity after moving to Grisons, when a renewed sense of color and light imposes itself as the founding nucleus of a new aesthetic concept. It is a painting of exceptional importance, and with a prestigious collection history, purchased at the Galleria Bottegantica in Milan.
No longer exhibited since 1954, the year of the ras Municipality of Arco marks Lombard Painters of the Second Nineteenth Century (Como, Villa Comunale dell’Olmo), the work finally re-emerges in the eyes of the public after seventy years. In the Italian context, the museum display of “Autumn Sun” by the Municipality of Arco for a sum of 3 million euros, constitutes one of the largest public purchases ever of a nineteenth-century work and in particular the largest Segantini acquisition since 1927. A masterpiece of national artistic culture today becomes part of the public heritage,
encouraging not only studies on Giovanni Segantini, but on all nineteenth-century Italian painting.
The painting, in relation to its iconological, technical and pictorial specificities, represents one of the cornerstones of Segantini’s painting, becoming one of his most important works, known today, of 1887.
The canvas, to be read in continuity with the results achieved with the work Alla Stanga, 1885-1886 (Rome, National Gallery of Modern Art), was developed by the painter at the moment in which, thanks to the reflection stimulated by Vittore Grubicy, he experimented in the Ave Maria a Trasbordo, 1886 (St. Mortiz, Segantini Museum) a first instinctual application of the pointillist drafting. The use of pure color mixture is freer, the brushstroke articulates the surface, now becoming more full-bodied, now more elongated; the subtle chromatic variations, free from the twilight conventionality of the Brianza years, meticulously restore the chromatic-luministic values studied from life. The centrality of “Autumn Sun” is also connected to the subject represented, an icon of primary importance of Segantini’s naturalism, linked to two other masterpieces of his production such as The Melting of the Snows, 1888 (St. Moritz, Segantini Museum) and Vacche yogate , 1888 (Basel, Kunstmuseum).
From a thematic point of view, the painting also constitutes a real moment of fracture compared to the works of the early 1880s. In fact, the canvas overcomes the literary impasse of the tragic and elegiac idyll, in order to celebrate a more direct exaltation of nature in its essential values, thus freeing it from a sentimental rereading to bring it closer, instead, to a panic and universal conception, within this which the painter defines as “naturalistic symbolism”.
The extraordinary nature of this acquisition also lies in the collection history of the same, which passed from the collection of Alberto Grubicy (1887) to that of the important Dall’Acqua family (1894), then passing through the Rossello collection (before 1926), one of the most consistent and important collections of the entire Italian twentieth century.
“The theme of valorising the figure of Giovanni Segantini is at the heart of our program and our mission – explains the mayor Alessandro Betta – and in this council we wanted to give a strong boost to the Civic Gallerywhich was also recognized in level internationalsignificantly implementing the museum project inherited from previous administrations. After an important journey which also involved the Province in the figure of its vice president Francesca Gerosa and the superintendent Marzaticotoday we realize what is a purchase that it will pass to historya painting that it has not been exhibited since the 1950sbut above all of extraordinary beauty. It is one of Segantini’s great paintings in Italy. It is significant that we proceed with the acquisition close to 125th anniversary of the artist’s deathtowards which we want with this purchase demonstrate ours gratitude”.
“The entrance to the opera’Sun of autumn‘in the collection of the city of Arco – adds the councilor for culture Guido Trebo– it is an extraordinary opportunity to growth and development for the our territorynot just from the point of view cultural. You have to have the courage to do it important choices to build our future, choices that allow us to grow and improve”.
The canvas is well known to historiansincluding myself, thoroughly documented and of guaranteed origin. The Square It is in excellent condition, on first canvas and has no signs of wear damage of conservation. It does not require restoration work, except one minimal cleaning of the painting on the surface, which has a thin layer of dust and is slightly yellowed. Even the cornice is in good conditionwith only the need for small repairs, but solid and well preserved. “Coming from the prestigious Rossello collection by Milan – writes the Municipality of Arco –, the canvas was last exhibited in 1954 Howon the occasion of the exhibition ‘Lombard painters of the second half of the 19th century at Villa Comunale dell’Olmo. After that it was no longer on public display. Added to the value and perfect state of conservation is the peculiarity of being almost unpublished, of interest both to the public and to critics and collectors, who for the most part they never got to see her live”.
The work is also one of the most important found in Italy: at the moment the large canvases by Segantini present in Italy are “At the pole“, at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, “Two o’clock mothers”, “The angel of life” And “Love to the sources of life”, from the collection of the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan. Smaller in size,”Pastures Of spring” of the Pinacoteca di Brera. This indicates that Arco becomes the third Segantini collection at the level national for importance of works owned.
Carlo Franza