Dusk

The painterly language of Stanisław Witkiewicz (1851-1915) formed in the polish artistic community in Munich, where Witkiewicz was in contact with, among others, the brothers Maksymilian and Aleksander Gierymski, Adam Chmielowski, and Józef Chełmoński. He continued the artistic acquaintances made there upon his return to Warsaw. There he engaged in intensive publication of critical texts, promoting trends of Realism and Naturalism. Witkiewicz championed the need for a change in thinking about the visual arts; the need to recognise the formal qualities of the work, decisive for its artistic value. Witkiewicz’s painted output was initially dominated by landscape-genre themes, characteristic for the Polish artists of the Munich school. With time, the artist began to concentrate on pure landscape, without the presence of people. It is to this group that the painting Dusk belongs. It presents nature as seen at the so-called “grey hour”, when the brightness of the day gives way to the gathering dark. The open space of the fields and meadows is closed on the right of the composition by the dark wall of the forest, running in an arc towards the horizon. A band of dark green meadow, sinking into twilight and “slashed” across by the smooth surface of the water, contrasts with the dark yellow field of lupin visible further in the background. The static composition is enlivened by a zone of sky with dynamically developed clouds. Undoubtedly painted in the open air, this landscape displays a convergence with the work of Józef Chełmoński.