The Divisionist Landscape: from true to symbolic

“That mysterious Divisionism of the colours that you see in my work is none other than a natural search for the light. Here my spirit was filled with great joy, my eyes were captivated by the blue of the sky and the tender green of the pastures as they gazed at the superb chains of the mountains in the hope of conquering them”. Thus wrote Segantini in a letter in 1898, explaining how his epiphany with the mountain landscape of Switzerland had led him to a new conception of light and colour that, in technical terms, achieved its maturity in the launch of his experimentation with Divisionism.
Both for Segantini himself and for the other artists who applied themselves to Divisionist painting, this new technique was not the mere application of a scientific discovery. The artists sought to render the light in its greatest force and intensity; however, this was not restricted to being a physical phenomenon, but was invested with emotional, ideal and symbolic values. A fine example is found in the works brought together in this room, where the Divisionist painters got to grips with the theme of landscape.
In Morbelli’s canvas, the light of the dawn that gradually rises from behind a hill covered with vineyards becomes an emotional comment on the slow movement of the couple of villagers making their way through life.
It was light, in all its force for regeneration, that inspired Pellizza to paint the scene of the Barn. The artist told the tale of how the violent contrast between the bright, joyful light of the landscape and the gloomy darkness of the barn suggested the subject to him when he entered the modest interior of his family home. That is how the humble space became the location of a human event, that of death, that has the potential to be a reflection of a universal sentiment. The artist’s search for the intensity of the light served as the means for transfiguring an everyday event into a concept, a shared reflection about the cycle of death and regeneration that is all part of nature.
In the same way, the Alpine landscape, with its typical light, is empowered in Segantini’s work with a value that goes beyond natural reality. The silence of the high mountains becomes tangible in the terse light: it is a silence that highlights the communion between and identity of every natural element, from the blade of grass to the young shepherdess, in a single universal flow. And it is in this so realistic light and in those colours highlighted by the weave of Divisionism that the eternal ideals of life are expressed in the progress of the lily-like lovers who, while aspiring to eternal love, are actually asking nature for eternal hope.