Peter Robert Berry II, The Great Silent Glow, oil on canvas, 1909-10
The Berry Museum is housed in the century-old Villa Arona in the heart of St. Moritz. It is dedicated to Peter Robert Berry II (1864-1942), who worked as a spa doctor and soon decided to take up painting. Over the course of 40 years, he produced numerous oil paintings, pastels and drawings. Like Giovanni Segantini, Berry also cultivated a divisionist style and his subjects were drawn from the Engadin mountain landscape; he saw himself in particular as a painter of the Julier and Bernina Passes. The Berry Museum was founded in 2004 by the painter's grandson, Peter Robert Berry IV, and opened on the premises of Villa Arona. Today it houses oil paintings, pastels and drawings by Peter Robert Berry II.
splendur e sumbriva
The Great Silent Glow A digital immersion in Berry's painting
"In the first oil paintings I used the Segantini technique, as I thought I had seen it in his works. I didn't know that he used long-haired brushes and used suitable bristle brushes for the pastose application of parallel strokes. Without intending to, I achieved an even greater luminous effect."
Inspired by Giovanni Segantini, the spa doctor and painter Peter Robert Berry II also experimented with the divisionist technique. The aim was to reproduce the Upper Engadin light in all its radiance. But what exactly happens in the eye when you look at a painting by Berry? How is this flickering, this indescribable glow created?
In a multi-sensory projection, this luminous effect - the dense fabric of individual threads of color - is impressively staged using digital image technologies. It allows visitors to immerse themselves in Berry's three-dimensional and partly moving worlds of color: the June mountain meadow, the golden autumn and the equally colorful white of the drifted snow on the Bernina Pass are experienced anew.
Drawing on the extensive family collection, the Berry Museum provides an in-depth insight into the artistic work of Peter Robert Berry, who saw himself in particular as a painter of the Julier and Bernina Passes. His most powerful paintings are linked to these outstanding spots in the Engadin landscape. The conciseness of these works is due to the tireless search for the wide horizon, the clarity of the contours and the intense light moods at over 2000 meters above sea level.
The "Bernina Room" at the Berry Museum
Peter Robert Berry II at the heights of Bernina Pass, 1908
