Paesaggio montano

The subject here is a snow-capped mountain chain: a potent barrier stretching right across the composition, while in the foreground a dirt road runs up into the gorge. At the roadside, dark trees contrast with the yellowish greens of the overlooking mountain slopes and the paler, impasto tones of the trail. At the left, a curtain of rock face advances, bringing with it the darkened mass of the woods, climbing up the flank to touch the rocks. This is a massive stone block which, interposed between the foreground and the distant peaks, serves as a gauge of their distance and a counterweight and contrast to the glaring white of the snows. A slanting, grassy meadow closes the foreground. The painting, though vivid, is less vibrant than Maggi’s 1902 mountain scene (inventory no. 16214), and the brushwork is still full-bodied, although the colours are organized according to the Divisionist technique and distributed by an uneven Pointillism.
The painting is on cardboard and could well be a study. We know that Maggi, like Segantini, favoured very large paintings, so the small size of this work is further evidence for this thesis.