Giovanni Segantini: Life and Work

An awareness of the human need to identify with a specific place, an archetypal landscape to which one returns again and again, is fostered as an idea in the Alpine paintings of Giovanni Segantini. The myth of the mountains, releasing us from everyday life and confronting us with the eternal qualities of nature, transcends human existence so that we can see it as part of a cosmic wholeness. Such strong emotions are rendered in a non-sensationalist way in this film, which compares Segantini's vision with the actual landscape in a flow of quiet and rhythmical images. The paintings, the beauties of nature and the thoughts of the artist tell their own tale. Only a small amount of information is given in connection with place, time, motive and theme; art-historical, philosophical or theological interpretations are dispensed with. The medium of film, better than any other art form, links the immediate experience of nature, its translation into art, and its symbolic interpretation. Panoramic scenes are shot from the same positions in which Segantini installed his sometimes enormous canvases; the camera shows the real topography of a place, and then shifts easily into the world of the paintings.

For more information see section 30

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