Cross in a Blizzard

Over time, the artist increasingly moved away from people and avoided social gatherings, preferring to spend time in nature. He lived like an ascetic,
delving deeper and deeper into mysticism. He based his faith on the foundation of individual, intimate communion with God – the Creator of all things.
At that time, a tone of spiritualism appeared in Chełmoński’s attitude towards nature, which had always been very emotional. We find it in the symbolically rendered painting – Cross in a Blizzard – the symbol of Salvation, hallowed in the Christian tradition – the cross, persistently resisting the gusts of snow – can be viewed as a “projection” of the author’s feelings. The beauty of the painting lies in its simplicity of the motif and an almost monochromatic, subtly differentiated colour tonality. The almost ascetic form suggests that in this case the artist no longer describes the world, but creates an image of nature serving to express a mystical experience.