Spring in the Alps

1897

Oil on canvas, 116 × 227 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

A girl leads two draught horses across a sunlit Alpine field, with snowy peaks behind. The wide view sets farm work inside a calm, high mountain world.

Strands of unmixed color are set next to each other, not blended, so the eye mixes them and field and sky shimmer. Italian divisionists drew the method out into threads.
Munich saw it first, at the seventh Secession exhibition.
Look for the sower working the plowed field behind the horses.
Flecks of gold leaf and thick paint catch the light across the surface.
On loan in San Francisco for over 70 years, it was sold in 1999 and reached the Getty in 2019.

The view is near Soglio in Switzerland's Val Bregaglia, toward the Sciora peaks. It was painted for a San Francisco collector, Jacob Stern.

Image: Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program · CC0