Holiday's End

It seems that the greyish-blue corner sofa is the main theme of this painting. The piece of furniture is set against a landscape, flat and monotonous lowlands with nothing particular to hang on to. The stretches of green are interrupted by the sandy rectangular shapes of a road and fallow, further away the curtain of trees partially obscures distant hills emerging from the bluish haze – marking the horizon. There is a grey cloud hanging ominously like a hovering
Zeppelin over this stagnant scenery. The only response to its unexpected presence is the trace of movement in the nearby greenery. Two of the trees don’t seem to fit within the frame, they vanish outside the right edge of the painting. The third one has its top sticking over the back of the sofa which lends the piece of furniture unusually large proportions. Down on the ground at the base of the sofa, a small pond surrounded by yellowing reeds resembles a puddle overgrown by grass and weeds. The meadows were replaced by sections of tidy, well-kept lawns, with shrubs looking like some humongous artichokes. As if this was not enough, there is a strip from a calendar pictured on the left edge of the painting introducing a peculiar kind of narration. It might be a hint to aid the interpretation of the painting much like the title is. Holidays – summer at its peak, when the heat of the days forces a lethargic and sluggish pace onto everything that’s alive, causing nostalgia and desire for the time to stop, for the fleeting moment to pause and hang on there to be cherished in its non-existence. The bluish haze shrouds every element of the landscape, consistent in its cool and whitened palette. The forms are neat and synthetic. The line is precise and the range of shades and colour saturations is pretty wide, attempting to highlight the three dimensions. The surface is smooth due to the paint being thinned down and applied sparsely. [M. Ipczyńska]