Winter Landscape

Kochanowski’s mature work was marked by a desire to portray the world with accuracy, which was accompanied by an endeavour to convey the mood unique to a particular season and its characteristic atmospheric phenomena. Winter Landscape perfectly captures the sleepy atmosphere of a winter day at dusk. Vast snow-covered fields radiate the mood of melancholy reverie. The foreground is occupied by a stream, whose meandering shape contrasts with a diagonal path leading into the depths of the composition. There are rural buildings in the distance, and on the horizon the landscape is enclosed by a forest. The murky sky complements stretches of land covered by melting snow. The landscape has been rendered with the use of one dominant tone of silvery greys, relieved by red elements in the clothes of women who are drawing water. Despite the appearance of realistic objectivity, closely observed nature acquires symbolic significance, creating a metaphor of human experience. Kochanowski often repeated his favourite landscape and genre patterns. This picture contains the whole repertoire of motifs typical of his works: a stream, a rural cottage, a wooden fence, a dirt road and peasant women dressed in red forming staffage.