Portrait of Carlo Rotta

The person depicted in the painting is therefore the father, Carlo Rotta, born in Bellagio on Lake Como in 1784 and moved to Milan in 1811 where he started a thriving industry, with the help of his sons Giovanni, Antonio and Giuseppe.
Carlo died in 1855, forty years before the execution of this painting (1897). The painting, a masterpiece of Divisionism, is one of the very rare portraits commissioned by Giovanni Segantini throughout his career, which makes it rare and peculiar.

The painter creates a composition of strong realism, based on a small portrait owned by the family and some of the deceased's clothes, which are sent to Soglio, in Val Bregaglia (Switzerland), where he lives.
Obviously clothing is out of date for this date.

The artist places the figure seated at the desk, taking his desk as a model.

On the cut of the furniture you can read the signature "G. Segantini 1897 ”.

The objective aspect, however, must not deceive: in recent years Segantini's work is characterized by a strong symbolist character, and the artist performs a work rich in meaning. The strong personal involvement is also proved by the use of gold powder mixed with color, a procedure reserved for very few works, particularly significant.

The composition offers a play of contrasts: on the one hand the warm and reassuring atmosphere of the interior

on the other the view of the snowy roofs of a city, immersed in the cold darkness of a winter night, which can be glimpsed outside the window. For Segantini, winter and snow are always a symbol of death and suffering.

The light beam of the desk lamp

radiates the face of the benefactor

and joins, in an ideal line, with the lamppost that illuminates the street outside.

In the cone of light the shape of a stretcher is presented, as it was in use at the hospital until the early decades of the twentieth century: closed by a canopy and surmounted by a dove, a symbol of the Ente (as we see in period photographs and in other portraits).