Except for a six-month period in 1864 when Agostino returned to Trentino, Segantini spent his early years with his mother, who experienced severe depression due to the death of Lodovico.

While there, he became friends with members from a transformative movement known as Scapigliatura (the "Disheveleds"), which included artists, poets, writers and musicians who sought to erase the differences between art and life.

[7] His first major painting, The Chancel of Sant Antonio (Il Coro di Sant'Antonio), was noticed for its powerful quality, and in 1879 it was acquired by Milan's Società per le Belle Arti.

That work attracted the attention of painter and gallery owner Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, who became his advisor, dealer and his life-long financial supporter.

This arrangement led to frequent conflicts with the Catholic church that dominated the region at this time, and they were forced to relocate every few years to avoid local condemnation.

At this time, he painted the first version of Ave Maria (Segantini Museum, St. Moritz), which took a gold medal at the 1883 World's Fair in Amsterdam.

To help Bice care for his family, Segantini employed a young maid, Barbara "Baba" Uffer, who also became his favorite model for his paintings.

[12] During this period Segantini produced several important paintings using Baba as a model, including Mothers, After a Storm in the Alps, A Kiss and Moonlight Effect (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen).

[14] His bolder style was immediately acclaimed by audiences; Segantini received gold medals in Munich (for Midday in the Alps) and Turin (for Ploughing).

This essay is credited with introducing visual artists to the then nascent literary movement led by Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Valéry.

[16] At the 1890 Salon des XX in Brussels, Segantini was given an entire exhibition room, an honor awarded such greats as Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.

Frustrated that the government would not grant him citizenship papers in spite of his fame, Segantini refused to pay cantonal taxes in Savognin.

After he moved higher into the mountains he began to study philosophy, concentrating on those writers who questioned the meaning of life and one's place in the natural world.

[19] Segantini also met and corresponded at length with Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, an Italian Neo-Impressionist whose color techniques he admired.

In 1897, Segantini was commissioned by a group of local hotels to build a huge panorama of the Engadin valley to be shown in a specially built round hall at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

[24] More than anything else, Segantini's work represents the quintessential transition from traditional nineteenth-century art to the changing styles and interests of the twentieth century.

He began with simple scenes of common people living off of the earth— peasants, farmers, shepherds—and moved toward a thematic symbolist style that continued to embody the landscapes around him while intertwining pantheistic images representing "a primeval Arcadia".

[25] Over the course of his life, he moved from both the physical and emotional internal, such as his scene of motherhood in a stable, to the grand external views of the mountain scenery where he chose to live.

"[26] His 1896 painting Love at the Fountain of Life (Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Milan) reflects Segantini's philosophical approach to his art.

Set in the high mountain landscape near his home, it pictures an angel with large wings spread over a small waterfall flowing from some rocks.

[27] Art historian Robert Rosenblum described Segantini as transforming "the earthbound into the spiritual",[28] and the artist himself referred to his work as "naturalist Symbolism".