Sunrise at the Splügen Pass

***Sunrise at the Splügen Pass*** is a painting in oil by the Italian painter Carlo Bazzi, made in 1900. Following the 1900 Italian Triennial of Fine Arts, it became one of the most significant works of landscape painting in Lombardy.

Completed on November 8, 1900, it is a work of art that was exhibited in the exhibition IV Triennial of Milan of 1900 Some have seen in _Levata del sole allo Spluga_ an answer **verística** Milanese _ to Monet's _Impression, rising sun_ with its colors and lights characteristic.

## Critical analysis

_Levata del Sole allo Spluga_ is considered one of the most significant works by Carlo Bazzi and a key testimony to the transition of Lombard painting from the naturalist tradition of the 19th century to more autonomous forms of atmospheric and symbolic expression. The painting was exhibited at the Italian Triennial Exhibition of Fine Arts 1900 at the Brera Academy in Milan, and it stands out for its monumental depiction of the Alpine landscape, where the morning light functions as a narrative and poetic structure. The composition reveals affinities with European luminist research, but it distances itself through its realist intensity and strong connection to northern Italian topography. As such, critics have identified it as one of the most representative examples of Italian landscape painting at the beginning of the 20th century, symbolically anticipating the expressive concerns of pre-Futurism related to light and atmosphere. Its dimensions (97 × 145 cm), documented exhibition provenance, and the rarity of comparable works on the art market today make it a key reference in the historiographical reassessment of post-Romantic Italian painting.

The work belongs to a crucial period in the artist's career, marking the transition towards more modern pictorial languages within the Lombardy art scene of the early twentieth century. It consolidated the shift towards modern forms. _Levata del Sole allo Spluga_ is regarded as a synthesis between naturalistic observation and Symbolist tension.

The work depicts an alpine landscape at dawn, in which light is not merely an atmospheric element but a structural component of the composition. In this painting, Bazzi's art surpasses nineteenth-century Lombard naturalism, moving towards an atmospheric and mental vision that anticipates the chromatic and lighting solutions characteristic of Symbolism and the Milan Secession. The compositional framing and the use of dawn light place the work in dialogue with contemporary European research, from Giovanni Segantini to Ferdinand Hodler, while maintaining an inherently Italian stylistic character.

## Related pages

- Carlo Bazzi
- Symbolism

## Bibliography

- Brera Academy, _Quarta esposizione triennale: 1900 ; catalogo ufficiale; Milan, (Palazzo di Brera)_ Milan, 1900
- Agostino Mario Comanducci, "Pittori italiani dell'Ottocento: dizionario critico e documentario", 1933, Milano, Ed. Casa Editrice Artisti d'Italia, pag. 42
- Agostino Mario Comanducci, "Dizionario illustrato dei pittori e incisori italiani moderni", Seconda edizione riveduta da L. Pelandi, Milano, 1945, Ed. Ovem, pag. 48
- H. Vollmer - Kunslerlex, 1953, pag. 142
- Agostino Mario Comanducci, _Dizionario illustratori pittori e incisori italiani moderni_, III ediz. Milan
- Heinrich, _Claude Monet'', Taschen, 2004 ISBN 9-8228-6198-7

## Infobox (painting)

- **alt**: See adjacent text.
- **image size**: 250px
- **title**: Sunrise at the Splügen Pass
- **italic title**: yes
- **other language 1**: Italian
- **other title 1**: Levata del Sole allo Spluga
- **other language 2**: French
- **other title 2**: Lever de soleil au col de Splügen
- **artist**: Carlo Bazzi
- **year**: c. 1900
- **type**: Oil painting, Oil on Populus, poplar
- **imperial unit**: in
- **height imperial**: 97
- **width imperial**: 145