Alla stanga (1886) by Giovanni SegantiniLa Galleria Nazionale
Nature leaves us speechless sometimes. Let's enjoy this view, while I tell you a bit more about this masterpiece.
Segantini paints “Alla Stanga” after two years spent in Brianza (a rural area in Northern-Italy) as a final tribute to its landscapes. The large canvas, painted en plein air, required six months of work.
The strong backlight gives three-dimensionality to the animals’ bodies, well defined in the areas reached by the sun, so much so you can even detect their bones.
A sequence of horizontal planes -where light and shadow alternate- allows us to embrace the grandness of the plateau. The sky, deliberately reduced to a strip above, maximizes the power of land and nature.
Isn’t it odd how the cow’s face is detailed compared to that of the peasant? Nature is sovereign. Human beings are present, but not as the protagonists: they’re rather a fragment of a harmonious whole, of greater beauty. Immense!
Text and audio by eArs ▬ making arts & culture a place for everybody
