Esposizioni

Arco 2017; Arco 2021-2022

Scheda opera

The work is part of the still life compositions of the early 1880s when, on the basis of the commercial attractiveness of these subjects, Segantini produced several interiors of stables with farmyard animals, such as Il camoscio morto of 1880 (Milan, Galleria d’Arte Moderna). It is precisely with this work I pulcini (The Chicks) that he shares an extreme parsimony of means both in the limited range of colours and in the simplicity of the workmanship.
The work is structured according to a horizontal dominant and is divided into two sections: the first, where wooden planks are depicted, is more shadowed and uniform in colour, the second where a greater chromatic variety is articulated in the rendering of the red bowl, the chicks’ plumage and the hay threads. The brushstroke is very free, as can be appreciated in the way the greenery is drawn with quick strokes of pure colour that render the different vibrations of colour in the light. The same is true of the chicks, which are rendered by means of juxtaposed patches of colour that reproduce the tactile effect of feathers.

(MARIA ELENA BERARDINELLI)