Pine Tree (c. 1897): Art, History and Details

Pine Tree (c. 1897) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni Segantini (Italian, 1858–1899).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Segantini painted this view of a pine tree in the Swiss Alps with his distinctive combination of brilliant colors applied in small, broken strokes. Rather than a direct transcription of nature, the extreme close-up view and the flat, decorative space are designed to arouse an emotional response. Finding spiritual consolation in the lush forests and clear light around his home in the Alps, Segantini wrote: “I am now working passionately to wrest the secret of Nature’s spirit from her. Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens.”

Object facts

• Title: Pine Tree
• Date: c. 1897
• Creator attribution: Giovanni Segantini (Italian, 1858–1899)
• Culture: Italy, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 149.5 x 84.8 x 4.1 cm (58 7/8 x 33 3/8 x 1 5/8 in.); Unframed: 135.2 x 72 cm (53 1/4 x 28 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1982.124

A detail from the museum

The bottom right portion of this painting was left unfinished; the earth-red ground layer is still visible.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Quinsac, Annie-Paule. Segantini: catalogo generale. Milano: Electa, 1982.
• Grubicy, Alberto, and Mario Morasso. Catalogo delle mostre coll. ve Segantini [e] Previati; mon. to a Segantini di Leo. Bistolfi. [Milano]: [Tip. L.F. Cogliati], 1906.
• Arcangeli, Francesco, and Maria Cristina Gozzoli. L'opera completa di Segantini. Milano: Rizzoli, 1973.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.