From today until 7th September, the London National Gallery is dedicating to Italian divisionists an exhibition entitled “Radical Light: Italy’s Divisionist Painters 1891–1910.” It is one of the first exhibitions to be held outside Italy that explores this artistic period, by displaying more than fifty paintings realized by the most important divisionist masters such as Giovanni Segantini and Gaetano Previati. The exhibition will also present rare paintings lent by important private and public collections in Europe and North America.
The exhibition, organized by the London National Gallery together with the Kunsthaus of Zurich (where the works will be displayed from 26th September to 11th January), faces the complex relation between divisionism, which characterized the passage between the nineteenth and twentieth century, and futurism, emerging movement at the dawning of the twentieth century. Indeed, at the exhibition there will be also works by Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini.
Strongly centred around Milan, divisionism is recognized as the most relevant Italian artistic movement of the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is a current that represents a feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction towards the political and social reality of the country, which has just achieved a territorial, but not substantial, unification. The ideal of democracy and social progress remains for the Italians a disillusioned expectation that generates alienation and disappointment towards the future.
Divisionists aim at being interpreters of this condition, they want to represent their political instances and make of their art an instrument for social change. These are the feelings that inspire the young group of artists, from the north of Italy, joined by the same ideals and by the wish to give an emotional response to their contemporary condition.
Social research is combined also with technical research, aimed at studying new optical and light effects. An important experience for the development of divisionism was represented by French pointillism, which inspired the search for greater brightness and sheen.
The investigation of colour and light is carried forward as a challenge by divisionists, influenced by the study of optical sciences. They use unmixed colours, which are perceived as a single colour by the beholder at a certain distance, intensifying to the most the brightness of their paintings.
Many of the divisionists’ artistic instances were non disconnected from a political creed. From the last decade of the nineteenth century, Giovanni Segantini, Angelo Morbelli and Emilio Longoni adhered to socialist ideas. For these authors art must not be an end in itself but intervene for the benefit of humankind.
Following an inverse route with respect to the one confronted by the working class in the same period, divisionist artists migrated from the big cities (especially Milan and Turin) to take refuge in calm countryside villages. Segantini, for instance, retreated to the Swiss Alps where he painted some of his most important works, including “Primavera sulle Alpi.”
Despite its significant intent to generate artistic exchange, divisionism failed to reach the cohesion necessary to achieve international success. However, it is exactly its plurality of aspects that makes this movement so interesting, distinctive and dynamic.
The choice of the National Gallery shows once again the interest of the International public towards Italian art, even the art dating from more recent centuries. In occasion of the exhibition, there will also be the presentation of a study on divisionism carried out by Simonetta Fraquelli, curator of the exhibition, in Italian and English, allowing an international public to follow up the themes connected to this artistic movement.
It would be interesting to be able to talk about exhibitions of such caliber, which travel to great institutions of worldwide fame, organized with the participation of Italian museums. There is a recognized international interest; therefore, we could attempt to go beyond the passive lending of works and move on to the ideation of exhibitions. We definitely have the necessary competencies, as well as great works to display.

(translated by Giorgina Arcuri)