Fishermen’s Boats in the Curonian Lagoon

P. Domšaitis birthplace was near the Curonian Lagoon, so images of fishing and other lagoon boats were a usual sight to him from his earliest days. Up until World War I P. Domšaitis belonged to the Minor Curonian group of artists that worked in the Semba peninsula near the Baltic Sea (Samland, Klein-Kuhren, present-day Filin, Kaliningrad district). In 1914–1918 he visited the famous Nida artists’ colony situated on the Curonian Spit. In his landscapes from before World War II, the painter liked to depict the sensation of the “sun shining through the clouds”, where expanses of meadows, forests, hills or water are bathed in a soft, scattered light, as in this painting, in which P. Domšaitis created a lyrical image of everyday life on the Curonian Lagoon. The composition’s colouring is characterized by both contrasts and a subtle grading of tones from the smooth surface of the lagoon to the expanse of green meadows to the blue of the sky. Even though a realistic selection of colours has been chosen, they are richer and more lively than they appear in nature.