The Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris is hosting the first retrospective in France of Giovanni Segantini (1858–1899), a major but little-known figure of Symbolism. The exhibition traces his career through the lens of his geographical ascent into the Alps, from his early success with "Ave Maria à la traversée" (1886–1888) to his final triptych "La Vie, La Nature, La Mort," which he was working on when he died at age 41. Segantini's divisionist technique, which Vassily Kandinsky considered a precursor to abstraction, is highlighted as a means of expressing a dematerialized vision of the world.
This exhibition matters because it reintroduces a pioneering artist who has been largely overlooked in France, despite his significance in Swiss and Italian modern art. By juxtaposing Segantini's alpine landscapes with the legacy of Claude Monet, the show underscores how both artists transformed perceptions of nature and light. It also sheds light on Segantini's unique biography—his childhood trauma, statelessness, and radical artistic freedom—and his spiritual approach to painting, which sought to dissolve boundaries between the material and the transcendent.