Cleveland Museum of Art

Pine Tree

Giovanni Segantini

Date

c. 1897

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

Italy, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Segantini painted this view of a pine tree in the Swiss Alps with his distinctive combination of brilliant colors applied in small, broken strokes. Rather than a direct transcription of nature, the extreme close-up view and the flat, decorative space are designed to arouse an emotional response. Finding spiritual consolation in the lush forests and clear light around his home in the Alps, Segantini wrote: “I am now working passionately to wrest the secret of Nature’s spirit from her. Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens.” The bottom right portion of this painting was left unfinished; the earth-red ground layer is still visible.

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