Giovanni Segantini | Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi / Midday in the Alps, 1891

"I am now working passionately in order 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"

- Giovanni Segantini.

"Midday in the Alps" is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) executed in 1891.

It currently resides at the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871

"The Avenue, Sydenham" is an 1871 oil painting by a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

This work is a product of the Impressionism movement, measuring 48 x 73 cm.

It currently resides in the National Gallery in London, UK.

From The National Gallery, London: Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Camille Pissarro and his family left France and moved to London.

This picture is one of 12 he painted while in self-imposed exile there.

One of the largest paintings in the group, this springtime scene, with the trees just coming into leaf, would have been completed in April or May 1871, shortly before Pissarro’s return to France.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871 | National Gallery, London

Claude Monet | Le ninfee

Nel 1890 che Monet acquista la sua casa a Giverny ed un anno dopo realizza il suo bellissimo giardino fiorito, il Clos Normand, una vera e propria opera d’arte.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) descriveva cosi il giardino di Monet nel suo "Alla ricerca del tempo perduto":

« [...] giacché il colore che creava in sottofondo ai fiori era più prezioso, più commovente di quello stesso dei fiori; e sia che facesse scintillare sotto le ninfee, nel pomeriggio, il caleidoscopio di una felicità attenta, mobile e silenziosa, sia che si colmasse verso sera, come certi porti lontani, del rosa sognante del tramonto, cambiando di continuo per rimanere sempre in accordo, intorno alle corolle dalle tinte più stabili, con quel che c'è di più profondo, di più fuggevole, di più misterioso - con quel che c'è d'infinito - nell'ora, sembrava che li avesse fatti fiorire in pieno cielo».

Vincenzo Cabianca | Macchiaioli painter

Vincenzo Cabianca (1827-1902) was an Italian painter of the Macchiaioli group.

He was born in Verona in modest circumstances. He began his artistic training at the Verona Academy under Giovanni Caliari, and then studied at the Venice Academy from 1845-1847.

An admirer of Giuseppe Mazzini, he became associated with the Young Italy movement and was taken prisoner while participating in the defense of Bologna in 1848.

After his release he lived in Venice from 1849-1853.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897

"Spring in the Alps" was created in 1897 by Italian Divisionism / Symbolist painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899).

The painting is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

"Spring in the Alps" depicts a panoramic alpine landscape near the village of Soglio - visible on the right with its recognizable church tower - in Val Bregaglia in southwestern Switzerland.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897 | J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Claude Monet | Valley of the Petite Creuse, 1889

The striking effects of Monet’s several paintings of the Creuse Valley in central France are achieved through complex, superimposed layers of color, as he combined bold brushstrokes with intricate passages made up of many small touches.

Title: Valley of the Petite Creuse

Author: Claude Monet (French painter, 1840-1926)

Date: 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 65.4 x 81.3 cm (25 3/4 x 32 in.)

Current location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Georges Girardot | Le reverences de la lune, 1890

Georges Marie Julien Girardot (1856-1914) was a French figure, landscape and marine painter.

Girardot was born in Besançon, Doubs on 4 August 1856.

He was trained by the artist Albert Maignan in Paris.

Girardot was active in Paris, painting mostly genre paintings, female nudes and landscapes.