Crossing of Siberia, 1959
In this overwhelming painting, Antonio Ligabue stages a true struggle for survival at the heart of an extreme landscape—one he never visited in person, yet recreated with astonishing visionary power. The relentless cold of Siberia forms the backdrop to this dramatic scene, in which a horse-drawn sleigh is attacked by a ravenous pack of wolves. Snow falls thickly, rendered with rapid, dense brushstrokes that build a livid, heavy, almost impenetrable sky. All around, a whirlwind of fear and tension.
The horses, caught in convulsive, unstable positions, seem to scream with taut muscles, gaping mouths, and raised legs. One of them, already overwhelmed, collapses to the ground amid blood and the fury of the predators. The men aboard the sleigh shout and gesture in terror, while the driver desperately tries to control the run, whipping the freezing air.
Yet what strikes most is not only the violent dynamism of the scene, but Ligabue’s ability to evoke places he had never seen: Siberia, the wolves, the furs, the low and tormented sky. Everything springs from an imagination nourished by prints, illustrations, films, and books. Nature in his paintings is always extreme and ungovernable—exactly like the emotions that inhabit it.
The snow, composed of small dotted touches, covers everything, enveloping men and animals in a single chromatic vibration. Cold tones alternate with vivid reds, deep browns, and harsh blacks, generating a powerful and restless visual contrast. Nothing is static: everything is movement, clash, fear.
The scene seems to arise from a nightmare or a distant myth, but above all it is an emotional self-portrait: Ligabue pours into this canvas his deepest anxieties, his sense of constant danger, and the fragility of human beings in the face of nature’s brutality.