Boats on the Sea

Originating from the Lithuanian region of Samogitia, Stanisław Witkiewicz (1851-1915) was a painter, illustrator, and art critic and theoretician. He spent his childhood in Siberia, where his parents had been exiled as a result of repressions following the January Uprising. He supplemented his education at the St. Petersburg Academy with studies in Munich, where he arrived in 1872, joining the local Polish artistic colony there. After returning to Warsaw, he co-created a circle of creatives centred on a workshop at the Hotel Europejski, and in the years 1884–1887 he was the editor of Wędrowiec magazine. In his painting and theoretical works, he promoted the adoption of realism, also fighting for the recognition in art of purely artistic, formal values. In 1890, due to poor health he moved permanently to Zakopane, falling under the spell of a fascination with the natural world of the Tatra Mountains and the culture of the local Highlanders. In 1904, Witkiewicz left his beloved Tatra Mountains and went at his doctor’s suggestion, to the Istrian Peninsula. He stayed at the then fashionable resort town of Laurana, situated in a picturesque location on the Adriatic. It was here that he spent the last years of his life. During Witkiewicz’s stay on the Adriatic, he created a seascape entitled Boats on the Sea. This small composition shows two boats with orangeish-red sails, sailing close to one another, side by side. The saturated colour of the sails reflects from the wavy surface of the sea. The zones of water and cloudless sky have been developed in a synthetic, balanced manner, accenting the light and hue values of the piece. The date of 23 July 1905 placed in the signature indicates that it was created while thinking of the birthday of a woman whom Witkiewicz had befriended, Maria Dembowska, a Zakopane connoisseur and collector of folk art.