Count Primoli, with whom Bonin was traveling, had agreed to exhibit some of his photographs of Venice at the hotel before he went on to Paris, and Bonin was taking care of the practical aspects of the show.
“Do I have a message?” Segantini said, repeating James’s question. “The light. Pure, unmixed color.”
James sat quietly, waiting.
“When I was at the academy in Milan,” Segantini explained, “I did my first oil painting, The Chancel of Sant Antonio.” He smiled remembering those days. “The sun was streaming in through an open window and over the carved wooden seats of the chancel, flooding them in light. Even back then, I tried above all to capture the light. But if you mix the colors on your palette, you get neither light nor air. So I sought a way to make the colors look genuine and pure, and I found it by setting them next to each other on the canvas, unmixed, leaving it for the retina of the viewers to meld them as they looked at the painting. In this way I achieved an animation of color, along with a greater degree of light and air in a way that felt faithful to life.”
Segantini had an inkling that James Danby would now ask about his training, his models—all the others did that. So he immediately continued, as soon as Bonin had translated his last words. “I registered at the Milan academy for life drawing and was accepted without any difficulties because I had already attended evening courses in decorative art. But only a few months were enough to convince me that academic instruction was useless for anyone born with an artistic soul. I taught myself what I needed to know. The academies train a lot of painters who are not artists,” he added in a dismissive tone.
He waited to be contradicted, but James did not contradict him.
“So you haven’t modeled yourself on other painters?” he asked instead.
“No,” Segantini replied, slightly irritated, “I already said that. Later, my friend Grubicy showed me reproductions of pictures by Millet, and of course I exchanged views with friends and colleagues.”
Segantini sank back into his memories, but then took up the conversation where James had interrupted him. “After having arrived at this knowledge by myself, I went to live in Brianza for almost four years. Bice came with me, our children were born . . .”
James sat forward in his chair and interrupted.
“Brianza? What is that? A region?”
“Yes,” Bonin said, answering for Segantini. “Brianza is the countryside north of Milan and south of Lake Como.”
Segantini nodded, realizing that Bonin was speaking about Brianza.
“I was attracted to nature, the out-of-doors,” he went on. “Nature had become for me, as it were, like an instrument that gave off musical sounds that accompanied everything that my heart was saying. Again and again, it is in the calm harmonies of sunsets that I find myself. In outdoor light, I find sweetness in the melancholy that has repeatedly filled my spirit since the days of my childhood.”
“You lost your mother very early,” James broke in. “Your brother, your father. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke called you not only the ‘Painter of light from Maloja’ but also ‘a great solitary.’”
Segantini pricked up his ears yet didn’t elaborate on this, but rather continued with his account. “I realized that I needed the light of the mountains. I was attracted to the high altitudes, always farther upward. I sought brightness, light. Milan is a swamp . . .”
James, who had collected some information about Segantini in London, added, “Then you moved to Savognin in 1886.”
Segantini laughed aloud and helped himself to some of the pastries that the waiter had put on their table. “Yes, my friend Dalbesio had gone on an excursion in the Grison mountains and was so enthusiastic that Bice and I decided to hike on some hair-raisingly dangerous paths across the Bergamasque Alps into the Valtellina,” he said, laughing again as he remembered the exertion involved. “We rented a one-horse carriage and had it take us through the Bernina Pass into the Engadine, and then I continued on over the Julier Pass to the north, past Savognin to Tiefencastel. But suddenly I had the driver stop and return to Savognin. I knew instantly: this was the landscape I was seeking, which already had its counterpart within me . . .”
Bonin translated, and James took notes.
Segantini waited politely and ordered a bottle of the local wine and three glasses. Then he went on, “Although I was penniless and unknown in Savognin, the hotel owner, Signor Pianta, had faith in me and helped me with the required security deposit so that I would be permitted to settle in Switzerland. Perhaps you already know this, but due to certain unfortunate circumstances, I am stateless.” After the wine arrived and was poured into glasses, he raised his with a nod to James, and took a drink. “In August 1886, I brought my family to our new home in a carriage loaded to the top with our belongings and thirty-five centesimi in my pockets.”
He made no further mention about how much Pianta had done for him or the debts he had incurred by the time he left Savognin in 1894.
“I was captivated by the strength of the colors, the crystalline clarity of the mountains. I kept going higher and higher up, alone. I immersed myself in nature, the quiet, the stillness.”
James interrupted Segantini. “The same basic motifs keep turning up in your pictures: maternal love and the common destiny of men and animals—death.”
Segantini nodded. “That’s what nature teaches you: the inescapable cycle of birth, life, death. We are part of it, like the plants, and the animals. Nature is not good and it is not evil; nature is. Religion doesn’t mean much to me, but my love of nature is boundless. The ultimate aim of my efforts is to achieve an absolute and complete knowledge, an understanding of nature in all its shading and nuance, from sunrise to sunset, in its structure and in all the variety of its beings—people, animals, plants. I want to use all my power to create a work that will be ideal.”
James felt uncomfortable whenever the word “absolute” or “ideal” was used, for he found that life in general and he himself were very fallible, and he mistrusted all absolute truths. It pleased him that Segantini was at least partaking freely of the wine.
“But nature is not ideal,” James said. “You yourself say she simply exists.”
Segantini loved discussions, and wine and ideas warmed him up. “Nature exists, but art shapes, creates. Matter must be worked on by the mind so that it can grow into eternal art. A picture is a thought, an idea that has been flooded with light. Art without an ideal would be like nature without life. After all, what is art if not a true image and a criterion for the perfection of the human soul?”
James poured some more wine into his glass, seeing that soon the bottle would be totally empty. “I have some doubts about the perfection of the human soul,” he said, countering the artist’s glowing statements, which Bonin had translated faithfully but without much emotion.
Segantini took off his jacket and ran his fingers through his black curls. “But we have to strive for it. Real life is nothing but a dream, a dream to eventually approach an ideal that is as distant and high as possible, so high as to extinguish matter. I pursue this ideal. I search for it up in the mountains, outdoors, where the paint freezes on the canvas in the icy cold . . . Human greatness begins where the mere mechanical work of our hands, the crude action stops, and where love and mental effort begin.” He leaned back in his chair, adding, “If you would like to, you can come with me to some of the locations where I’m working just now. I usually work on several paintings at the same time. I leave them outside through all sorts of weather; but they’re kept safe in wooden boxes.”
James, who preferred the streets of a big city, wasn’t sure whether this offer was attractive to him, but he thanked Segantini and said he would think about it. And because he preferred not to discuss the question of whether love began with the intellect, he changed the subject and asked, “What is beauty, Mr. Segantini?”
Bonin looked at
James Danby in surprise, and then translated his question.
“Beauty,” Segantini replied without hesitating, “Beauty! You need only look at a flower. It tells you better than any definition what beauty is. Art is love enfolded in beauty.”
“But is the bellowing cow in the pasture that you painted beautiful?” Danby asked.
“Yes. Because I saw her with love, and because the picture is true. It shows the creature—and we are not very different from her—the way I saw her with my inner heart and the way I understood her with my mind.”
James nodded after Bonin had translated Segantini’s words. He had actually wanted to direct the conversation to The Punishment of Lust, the painting that had caught his eye in Liverpool because of its technique, and whose message he did not approve of at all. Because in addition to the Madonna-like women, there were those “evil mothers” who were hanging in trees, half-naked, their bodies ecstatically curved backward, one of whom had at her breast a nursing child with a face that seemed to be more like that of a man. The expressions of ecstatic pain in the faces of these women with the long reddish hair reminded James more of passion than the punishments of Hell. Was a picture of pure maternal love the only thing that could fill Segantini’s soul with peace? Did these sensual figures, surrounded by ice, embody all those strange, menacing feelings he was trying to shut out of his life? Did the women who found grace in Segantini’s eyes have to resemble the image of his mother as he wanted to see her?
James suddenly remembered his days in boarding school. He had been furious with his mother, had hated her, because she had sent him to England, abandoning him to loneliness. She wanted only the best for him. He knew that. And for that reason he ought not to be mad at her, ought to avoid letting her see his anger. But this only made him more furious. Perhaps Segantini had a similar experience.
James suddenly knew that he could save himself that question. Segantini had painted an answer, but he had not understood it as such. By painting loving mothers, he painted for himself an ideal of the thoughtful maternal figure that he had lacked as a child. And his paintings of the “evil mothers” reflected his rage against this deprivation. And even though his mother was not to blame for her own early death, he had to punish her, not in a realm where his mind held sway, but where hidden feelings ruled. He would never admit those hidden feelings, not to James nor to himself.
Segantini had escaped the darkness of his childhood by seeking light, and he had found his ideal—although he, like no other painter, gave masterful expression to the transitions between brightness and darkness. He was best at depicting not only that which he loved, but also what he feared: dusk, the twilight hour, which held the sweetness of melancholy but in which also lurked the darkness of being lost.
Segantini sought an ideal without shadows; he painted the idea, the thought. But he was most brilliant in giving form to the broken light that embraced the pain he had tried to get away from all his life long.
James returned to St. Moritz. He was impressed by Segantini, by the battle people fight against the ghosts of their own histories in an attempt to give meaning to the meaningless, to counteract indifference with beauty and love. Or what they thought they were.
Segantini was satisfied with the interview. The older he got, the more he liked to talk about his work and discuss theoretical and artistic questions. He was in a cheerful mood after the interview, and when he met Achille Robustelli, he returned the latter’s greeting. “Thanks, Robustelli, for arranging this interview, and even finding an interpreter. I had a pleasant conversation with Mr. Danby.”
“I’m glad,” Robustelli said. “May I accompany you a few steps? I wanted to talk to you about another matter, just briefly.”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
“It’s a rather delicate matter. I hope you won’t take offence. Gaetano, the gardener, has complained to me that Nika is being distracted too much from her work.” Achille took a deep breath. “You come by to see her frequently, and evidently you also took her with you, in the middle of her workday, to St. Moritz.”
Segantini was about to fly off the handle, but Robustelli placed a hand on his arm to calm him.
“Wait a moment. I don’t wish to criticize you. I just wanted to tell you that the girl is going to have difficulties because of this. Actually, I should let her go. She can’t simply leave work, even if you,” he cleared his throat, “even if you have asked her to. If it gets around, it will stir up bad blood. And the negative effects will hurt Nika, not you.”
“Nobody can reproach me with anything,” Segantini said angrily.
“But it must matter to you if I can’t employ Nika anymore. She will hardly be able to stay in Maloja then. The Biancottis won’t just keep on feeding her.”
Segantini gestured emphatically with his hand and gave Robustelli a cool look.
“You seem extremely worried about the girl.”
Achille said nothing. He found this only normal and wished that Segantini would also take the girl’s welfare into consideration.
“I hear what you’re saying, Robustelli.”
With these words, Segantini turned, waved good-bye, and quickly walked away.
Achille watched him thoughtfully. For the first time since he had known him, he didn’t like the man.
He went back to his office, closed the door, and sat down at his desk. He took the silver cigarette case out of the drawer. He didn’t look at his reflection in the gleaming surface but absentmindedly lit a cigarette. He really didn’t know anything about Nika even though he saw her every day.
Kate had cited her husband’s urgent business affairs as the reason for their sudden departure. It was supposed to look as if Robert were about to complete an important transaction which she, as a loving wife, was also anxiously anticipating. So supportive was she that she was willing to break off her vacation prematurely and miss out on the festive opening ceremonies for the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz to be at her husband’s side at this important moment.
With her head held high, she rushed down the stairs, bestowing a warm smile on Betsy when she ran into her at the reception desk.
“Betsy, how nice that I get to see you before I leave!” she said. “How lucky you are! Enjoy the opening celebration at the Palace. It’s sure to be an unforgettable event.” She took Betsy’s hand. “I envy you!” She paused briefly so that her regret could be felt, then continued with a happy look on her face. “Just think, my dear Betsy, with your niece in the hospital and me already on the train, you’ll be brilliant, the center of attention!”
Betsy, who never ceased to be amazed at Kate’s lightning-fast insults, didn’t say anything to answer this remark, merely wished Mrs. Simpson a good trip. Kate nodded. “Yes, it’ll be good for dear Robert that I go with him. There’s nothing that beats a good marriage, but you know that, after all, you were married once too.”
Betsy abruptly let go of Kate’s hand, which was still holding on to hers. It was a blessing that this woman, for whatever reason, was vanishing from the stage. But something else had occurred to Kate.
“Oh, just one more thing, Betsy. I think I ought to tell you, otherwise I’ll reproach myself later.”
Betsy raised her eyebrows.
“Well, what is it you think I absolutely have to know?”
“Oh, it’s about your niece. Our dear James—I think you like him too—has not exactly behaved comme il faut toward your young Mathilde, so he confessed to me. I assume Mathilde did not tell you about it, and it’s certainly understandable that James won’t tell you about it. But I thought you really should know that he more than compromised your niece. You did tell me she was engaged. But now I really must go. Good Lord, Robert has been waiting an eternity in the carriage for me . . .”
With that, she hurried off, before Betsy could say anything.
Nika was having dreams about post coaches. In one dream, the post
coach was racing through Mulegns, the wildly galloping horses running away with it. The woman at the post coach stop was watching the lurching coach in horror. Nika, as a grown-up, was standing beside her and pointing at a woman’s white arm waving out of the coach window.
In a different dream, she saw Segantini sitting in another coach. He stuck his head out of the window. All she could see were his dark curls, as she had on the day she saw him for the first time. As the coach moved along, he threw the drawings she had given him out of the window. Saddened, she gathered up the scattered sheets of paper.
Another time, it was she who got into a coach. “To Italy,” she called out to the driver, but he only shook his head. “I don’t have a license for Italy,” he said. “You’ll have to walk. No one will drive you there.”
Nika was not only plagued at nighttime by bad dreams. In the daytime, too, she felt unhappy. She couldn’t stop feeling furious with her mother, who had only managed to do things halfway. If only she had simply abandoned Nika without leaving any clues. Then she wouldn’t have to worry now about whether her mother perhaps still loved her in some corner of her heart and was calling to her with the message in the locket.
In spite of that, Nika had searched for the locket she had angrily taken off a while back. It was a miracle that she found it again in the hay. Now that she no longer wore it, she hid it under her straw pallet.
Segantini was coming less frequently. Either he was using the days to paint or he had become more cautious. She had sworn to herself not to practice writing anymore and not to draw because it reminded her of Segantini. In spite of that, she did both. She wrote and sketched. Once, when she was daydreaming, she wrote, “I love Segantini.”
Portrait of a Girl Page 18