Mermaid Being Mobbed by Seagulls - Giovanni Segantini iPhone Case

Giovanni Segantini (15 January 1858 – 28 September 1899) was a visionary Italian painter whose sweeping Alpine landscapes fused pastoral realism with Symbolist transcendence. Orphaned young and rendered stateless for life, Segantini rose from extreme poverty—learning to read and write only in his 30s—to become one of the most celebrated artists in Europe by the end of the 19th century.

Trained at the Accademia di Brera, Segantini began with intimate scenes of rural peasant life before turning to the luminous techniques of Divisionism and the spiritual inquiries of Symbolism. His works—marked by crisp mountain light and metaphysical resonance—embodied what he called “naturalist Symbolism.” In the remote Swiss Engadin valley, he painted en plein air under wooden shelters, attempting to wrest the “spirit of Nature” from her silence.

Segantini’s final masterpiece, the monumental Alpine Triptych (Life, Nature, Death), remained unfinished at his death from peritonitis at age 41. A museum in St. Moritz now stands in tribute to his rare ability to transmute earthly labor into celestial vision.