Love at the source of life

Giovanni Segantini painted Love at the source of life three years before his death in 1899. It is known as one of the works of the symbolist phase that began in 1891 with the painting entitled The bad mothers.

At that time the artist lived in the Engadine, in Switzerland. Love at the source of life was painted in the village of Maloja where he lived with his family. The work is considered the most pre-Raphaelite of Giovanni Segantini's works. The union and the embrace between the two characters celebrates a spring ritual. The painting is also known under the title of Lovers at the source of life.

Giovanni Segantini described the painting in a letter dated 11 October 1896 written to Domenico Tumiati. The work is the representation of the carefree love of the female and thoughtful of the male. The embrace represents the impulse of youth and spring. Their white clothes also represent purity. Flowering rhododendrons represent eternal love while "zembri", (Swiss stone pine, Cembri) represent eternal hope. Within a natural landscape, two lovers walk embraced. On the left, an angel with wide white and feathered wings is seated next to the source of life. The couple advances on the beaten path, towards the source, in the center of the painting. The two are embraced and dressed in large white tunics waved by the wind. Their bodies, below, are naked and their expressions carefree and serene. The dark-haired boy tilts his face towards the red-haired girl.

The angel is dressed in a long tunic that leaves his arms exposed. It has a feminine and delicate appearance. The very wide wings covered by very long white feathers protect the source. He sits on a stone seat and a jet of water flows to his left and collects in a puddle of earth. On the right, a slender Swiss stone pine rises towards the sky. The meadow is dotted with flowering rhododendrons and in the distance, a line of high mountains can be seen on the horizon. The sky is crossed by long strips of clouds while at the top, right in the center of the painting, there is a crescent moon.