The Mountain Where the Muse Kisses You
It's no wonder that artists find Muottas Muragl both a place of power and a source of inspiration. We find creative evidence of their art not only in museums, but also along the hiking trail!
Muottas Muragl – this box seat of the gods, with its magnificent panorama, heavenly peace and invigorating nature, has been inspiring painters, poets, philosophers and other creative minds from all over the world for centuries. Great names such as Giovanni Segantini, Giovanni Giacometti and Friedrich Nietzsche let their eyes wander into the distance, which rarely enchants its viewers as much as from this mountain. They willingly succumbed to the spell of the special light and immortalised it in their works.
Art on the move
Once upon a time, on an autumn morning in 1897, the two painters Giovanni Segantini and Giovanni Giacometti set out on foot for Muottas Muragl. Together with their famous colleagues Ferdinand Hodler and Cuno Amiet, they were to create a gigantic circular painting for the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. And Segantini and Giacometti already knew exactly which motif they would contribute: the spectacular view from Muottas Muragl over the Engadin chain of lakes and the surrounding mountains, of course! Unfortunately, this mammoth project remained stuck in the sketch stage for financial reasons, so Segantini instead captured this excursion in his monumental triptych ‘Becoming – Being – Passing Away’ (La Vita – La Natura – La Morte) with the view from the Segantini hut, his very personal place of inspiration just above Muottas Muragl. The four-part panorama by Giacometti is also monumental, depicting the view from the Roseg Valley to Piz Ot, which he created to decorate a St. Moritz chalet.
Open-air museum at 2460 m
Muottas Muragl is still a place where visitors can encounter artists and their works, as they follow the ‘Senda d'Inspiraziun’ (Path of Inspiration). The circular route begins just above the Romantik Hotel at the mountain station and presents sculptures by five Swiss artists:
The most accurate sundial in the world is called ‘Sine Sole Sileo’ (Latin for ‘Without the sun I am silent’) and indicates the time to within 10 seconds. The designer Fred Bangerter found the best possible conditions for his installation on a boulder, because Muottas Muragl is one of the sunniest places in Switzerland. Have we sparked your interest in the interplay of sun, shadow and time? Here you can learn more about it.
The name of the sculptor Timo Lindner's work ‘Il Guot’ (Rhaeto-Romanic for ‘drop’) also says it all. The huge snow-white drop made of natural stone, mortar and marble symbolises the world of water: water in our bodies, in the sea, as rain, in space as ice – and of course in the Engadin as snow. The 4-metre-high sculpture, which, like all of Lindner's works, appears rudimentary and archaic, reflects the importance of the simple things in life that will always give us pleasure. ‘Cruscheda’ (Rhaeto-Romanic for ‘crossroads’) by Curdin Niggli commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Muottas Muragl funicular railway and its shape suggests the meeting of the two railway carriages in the middle of the line. The iron sculpture is a reference to the iron will and tireless pioneering spirit of the planners, which made it possible to develop Muottas Muragls with a scenic railway in 1907.
All the imposing mountain giants that stand around Muottas Muragl attract the admiration of visitors, but the Biancograt of Piz Bernina, Piz Julier and Piz Ot come into sharp focus thanks to the three mountain guides ‘Ils Trais Piz’ made of Corten sheet metal by Fabian Forrer. The walk-in sculpture ‘Bernina Glaciers’ by Ramon Zangger is also dedicated to the magnificent summit panorama – in the truest sense of the word: made of Engadin pinewood, the work of art invites hikers to linger and admire the imposing mountain massifs around Muottas Muragl.