Winter in Maloja

Along with Giovanni Segantini and Cuno Amiet, Giovanni Giacometti is the most important exponent of Swiss painting at the turn of the 20th century, a genre in which colour is dominant. The father of the famous sculptor Alberto Giacometti (whose work is also signally represented at the Kunsthaus), he was influenced by his two fellow painters, drawing on Segantini’s Pointillism and Amiet’s coarser, dynamic brushwork and coloration influenced by van Gogh and Gauguin. In this winter painting of Maloja, where the artist had settled with his family, forms almost dissolve in a shimmering play of colour. A flocculent veil hangs over the picture, in which even the shaded areas are radiantly colourful.