Segantini's mother died when he was only five and he had a difficult and unhappy childhood. In 1864 his father sent him to Milan to be looked after by a sister-in-law, but he ran away several times, and finally took refuge with another relative at Borgo Val Sugana. His life continued to be unhappy and restless until 1876, when he returned to Milan, and there attended evening painting classes at the Brera Academy. In 1882 he went to live at Brianza with Luigia Bugatti, and had four children by her. He was able to pursue his career as a painter with the help of a merchant, Vlttore Grubicy, and his brother Alberto . Under their influence he gave up the somber tones he had used in his earlier paintings  and began to use very brilliant, sparkling, occasionally rather harsh colours with paint thickly applied. There was something pantheistic in his approach to nature, and he often painted scenes of the hard, austere life of the peasants in the mountain valleys, under an intensely blue sky and an implacable sun. In 1886 Segantini went to live at Savognino in the Canton des Grisons, for the sake of its pure clear mountain light and air; later he left and moved to Maloja in the Engadine. For a while he was attracted to symbolism but he soon reverted to painting the type of landscape he was famous for, both in Italy and in Germany. He died comparatively young of acute peritonitis in 1899.

Based on Phaidon encyclopedia of Impressionism, Maurice Serullaz, Phaidon, 1978