and the trivial. There are in the small canvas by
Vegetti, ' Mother, why are you crying ? ' botli pathos and realism ; there is artistic completeness in that of Giani ; while those by Segantini and Morbelli stand out as distinctly original in their peculiar selection of effects and treatment of ideas. Indeed, an exhaustive analysis might be made of the work of Segantini alone, who of the two is less biassed by the methodism of French technique, less imbued by
the strain of a pessimism which in Morbelli now and
then trenches on morbidity.
At first one is not quite certain whether to be in
agreement or not with Segantini's work, for it is all
rather Kzarre, though fascinating perhaps on this
very account, as experiments in out-of-the-way
directions are wont to be, if for no worthier reason
than their divergence from the well-worn highway
of self-satisfied conventionalism. But in this case
there does seem to be a better reason, and the
strangeness does not result from any ambitious
soaring into historic or classic themes. On the
contrary, the subjects are of the simplest, the treat-
ment alone marking them out as original. Among
the twenty or more of Segantini's works drawn or
painted in various materials is ' A Study in Light
and Shade,' merely of some sheep feeding in the
penned-off shelter of a shed, through the back of
which are seen a field glowing with bright sunlight,
and women at agricultural toil, who spot the field
at intervals with little blots of shadow. The tone
is admirable, while the lean truthfulness of the old
sheep, the conscientious value of each particular
rail and bar to the general effect of the scheme, is
akin somehow to the earnest interpretation of those
of our painters who erstwhile bore the title of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But owing perhaps
to climatic or atmospheric differences, the deeply
blue sky in both the ' Winter at Savogrim, Canton
Grisons ' and the ' Ploughing,' painted in the same
neighbourhood under an autumn sun, is peculiarly
unsuggestive in every particular of that lucid depth
and aerial significance, which we in our misty home
have learned to look for as an essential in a pictm-ed
sky. For it is here, as Mr. Ruskin has somewhere
said, in comparing the skies of Turner with those of
the men who came before him — even the classic
Claude did not escape — that sooner or later in their
work a point is reached in which we touch upon
solid paint and canvas, whereas he, our Turner, for
the first time gave adequate expression to the
mystery of light and distance, so that in regarding
his skies it seems possible to pass on and on through
luminous infinitude of space and cloud, still feeling
that an infinitude lies beyond.
But in Signor Segantini's case it is not so much
canvas that we come upon as a wall of solid paint,
upon whose deep colour the snowy undulations with
the figures ' tobogganing ' smite the sky in a way
wellnigh destructive of any retention of perspective.
The little houses, too, half hid by the rounding
curve of the hill, look like toy blocks, perfectly
distinct, and not like large objects rendered small
by reason of their greater distance ; the dog also,
keeping pace with his mistress and in the shadow
of her descending sledge, looks curiously unreal and
uncomfortably large. In the other picture, again,
the phalanx of distant movmtains rises into the air
with a piercing sharpness of outline which serves to
accentuate still further the hard flatness of the air-
less space ; and although the sun is shining some-
where and its brightness plays upon the peaks and
ridges of these icy caps ; although it spreads in
autumnal warmth over the dark ground, over the
horses and peasants at the plough, there prevails a
sense of loneliness — perhaps due to those quiet far-
away mountains — as of some place stranded and left
for ever out of reach of the sweeping tide of human
life. And yet does it lie altogether in the subject .
Not necessarily, one would think, for there in another
room is a painting of ' Alpine Scenery ' by Dall
Orta, in which the descending glaciers, the tilted
strata, and rugged blocks and crags, the verdurous
slopes and cattle at the margin of the mountain
lake, tell quite another tale — of solitude may be —
yet rather of the quietness of a summer's day, where-
in the whirr of insects and bird-notes chime with
faintly rhythmic pulse to the far-off throb of human
thought.
Although this deficiency of aerial value is hardly
compensated by other things, Segantini's versatility
comes out in his other themes. There is one, for
instance, a study, delightful for its unity, called
' My Models.' It is of two children, a boy and girl,
in an artist's studio, earnestly studying a half-com-
pleted picture by the light of a lantern. The effect
here is broader and simpler, and the colour is sweeter
than in the others ; unless we except as being also
delicate in harmony the two out-of-door subjects
called ' Shearing ' and the ' Autunm Sun,' which are
even more interesting as tentative essays. For the
rest, Segantini's smaller sketches give proof of a
singular degree of poetic feeling and refinement not
too commonly associated with the clever, and in
many instances merely facile technique of the major
part of the work here seen of the Italian painters.
But in this same school (the Milanese) are two or
three remarkable pictures, as well as several clever
ones, and many which are bad. Of the first kind,
' The Work of the Day ended,' by Giovanni Giani, is
remarkable as an experiment in low tone, and the
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THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW