Journey through Latvia's landscapes: immerse yourself in "Spring waters (Maestoso)"

Vilhelms Purvītis (1872–1945) is one of the forefathers of Latvian professional art. After the proclamation of state independence, he established the Art Academy of Latvia, was its first rector and long-time head of its Landscape Studio.

He was the director of the Riga City Museum of Art and curator of its collection of Latvian art. Purvītis studied at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, where he devoted particular attention to landscape – the most important genre in his oeuvre.

Purvītis is among the most notable painters of winter, the melting snow and spring floods in European art.

In this impressive work the master has brought together everything that is characteristic of the early spring landscape – flood waters ...

The breaking of ice and snow-covered shores.

On which a grove of slender birch trees in brown tones stands out.

Is harmonious and calm, produced both by the colour scheme as well as the panoramic composition and the calm surface of the water reflecting the rhythmically arranged trees.

It is precisely, even mathematically structured and the depicted landscape is generalised, the image of nature is revealed with refinement and sensitivity.

Vilhelms Purvītis had assembled a majestic canon of the national landscape, whose different variations he continued to develop.