Bridge over Seine

Jan Rubczak is a representative of Post-Impressionism who died in 1942 in Auschwitz. Between 1904 and 1911, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Florian Cynk, and later in the graphic studio of Józef Pankiewicz. It was from the latter artist that he took up his interest in Post-Impressionism. He honed his skills in Paris between 1908 and 1909, later at the Akademie für Graphische Künste und Buchgewerbe in Leipzig and the Académie Colarossi in Paris, where he lived between 1911 and 1924. He was one of the founders of the Society of Polish Artists in Paris, established in 1911. The painting Most nad Sekwaną [Bridge over the Seine], in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin, dates from that year. The cityscape is both an expression of his fascination with the place where he settled and a theme often used in Impressionistic attempts to find new ways of representing reality closer to visual Impressions depending on the circumstances of perception. The view is shown from above the water on stone bridge spans over which the city's buildings are displayed. The view shows the typical aesthetics of Synthetism propagated by the Pont-Aven school, i.e. the use of subtle, modelling patches of colour with fluid outlines. Contours are almost invisible, they are replaced by a torn line which is used not so much to represent natural shapes, but rather suggestions of forms. That is not the only view of bridges in the artist's work. Like his master, Pankiewicz created numerous images of Parisian posts in various variants. It is worth noting the interpenetration of various shades of grey, green and blue in the view of the Seine, which reflect the natural inconstancy of water, its waves and pulsating reflections well.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska