GIOVANNI GIACOMETTI (1868-1933)
Piz Duan (3,131 m- 10,272 ft)
Switzerland
In Primavera Piz Duan, oil on canvas, Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur (Switzerland).
The mountain
Piz Duan (3,131 m- 10,272 ft) is a mountain of the Oberhalbstein Range, overlooking Vicosoprano and the Val Bregaglia, in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Piz Duan is considered to be one of the most perfect lookout mountains of Switzerland. Thanks to its prominence - it stands out above Bergell / Val Bregaglia for more than 2000m, above Val Maroz for almost 1500m - its panorama is clearly breathtaking. Clearly most impressive are the granite spires of the Bergell Alps / Val Massino Alps just across the valley but the whole of Graubünden / Grisons / Grischun and much of the Alpi Lepontine can be seen as well as the Valais Alps around Monte Rosa and Dom.
Piz Duan is part of the Platta Group and stands at its southern end, where Graubünden borders Italy.
The painter
Giovanni Giacometti was a Swiss painter, the father of the famous painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and of Diego Giacometti, the furniture designer as well as the father of the architect Bruno Giacometti ! In 1886, he studied painting at the School of Decorative Arts in Munich, where he met Cuno Amiet the following year. Both decide to pursue their studies in Paris, in October stood at the Académie Julian, where Giacometti remains until 1891.
In 1893, shortly after his return to Switzerland, to Bergell, he became friends with Giovanni Segantini, his eldest ten years, which has great influence on his work by opening it to the beauty of the mountain scenery and the rules of divisionism. After his sudden death in 1899, Giacometti met Ferdinand Hodler, who teaches him to create a rigorous and ornamental composition by appropriate use of shapes and colors.
He sees regularly Cuno Amiet, who after a year spent in Pont-Aven, shared his experience with him. In 1900 he exhibited in the Swiss Pavillon of the Universal Exhibition in Paris. From 1905, Giacometti works again in a great complicity with Amiet and begins to break free from the influence of Segantini. In 1906, held an exhibition of his work at Kunstlerhaus Zurich. In 1907 he went to Paris with Amiet to the Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne. They copy all the works of Van Gogh. In 1908, he exhibited with the French Fauves at the Richter Gallery in Dresden.
In 1909, the Tannhauser Gallery presents his works in Munich. He meets Alexi von Jawlensky, and in 1911 participates in the Berlin Secession. In 1912, Giacometti has a solo show at the Kunsthaus Zurich presents two works in the Sonderbund of Cologne. In 1918 after Hodler' s death, he began to be involved into the Swiss political world paying an important part as a committed artist, following int that way friend Amiet.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
