Giovanni Segantini: 7 works

'The painting, which shows the choir of the church of Sant'Antonio Abate in Milan with an altar boy putting out the sheets of music for the next service, was produced by Segantini at the end of his studies and shown in the annual exhibition of the Brera Academy.'

'The painting was given as a gift to Spartaco Vela from Segantini himself.'

'It is thought that this work was created during the period when Segantini moved from Milan in 1881 to a town on the shores of Lake Como.'

'The larger format of the work in the Cariplo Collection, the quick, clean lines, which almost suggest a tracing, and the technique itself all support the hypothesis that Segantini produced or used it as a cartoon or preparatory drawing for a work on a larger scale, which may never have been executed. Both drawings belong to the series of studies of agricultural labour carried out at Savognino, a town in the canton of Grisons, where Segantini had been enabled to move with his family in 1886 by financial support from Vittore Grubicy.'

'This is probably one of the most popular paintings by Giovanni Segantini.'

'After thus paying for their sins they will eventually attain Nirvana, a Buddhist heaven, represented by the distant splendid mountain range carefully painted by Segantini from the Swiss Alps near St Moritz.'

'The painter Giovanni Segantini had an impoverished and joyless childhood. He barely turned eight before both his parents died.'