Kazimierz on the Vistula

Konstanty Kietlicz-Rayski studied in Warsaw, at Wojciech Gerson's Drawing Class, and then at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków, in the studios of Jan Matejko and Leon Wyczółkowski. In the first decades of the 20th century he was one of the most active animators of Lublin's artistic life. He was a painter and ethnographer - the author of numerous studies of folk types of the Lublin and Podhale regions. Kietlicz's artistic output was dominated by watercolour and inked portraits, as well as moody landscapes and views of picturesque corners of Lublin, with which the artist connected his life after 1904. Kietlicz was an advocate of the art understandable for the audience, he pointed out to the necessity of its dissemination in wide social circles, postulating "arranging exhibitions in public squares free of charge" ("Kurier Lubelski" 1907, No. 144, p. 3). He put his ideas into practice, painting a view of Kazimierz on the Vistula River in the hallway of the Lublin Branch of the Warsaw Commercial Bank at 3 Kapucyńska St. The painting may have been initiated and funded by Tadeusz Szymon Piotrowski, a bank director with a passion for fine arts, who initiated the creation of the Lublin museum. Kietlicz took up a post of a teacher in the Commercial School established by Piotrowski, and gave drawing lessons to his daughter, Teresa, whom he later married. This painting, preserved only in the form of a watercolour sketch, depicts a panoramic view of the surroundings of Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula river, i.e. a town which for years attracted numerous artists delighted with the beauty of the local plein airs. Kietlicz included in it a view of the castle in Janowiec, visible in the distance, over the bend of the Vistula river, and the ruins of the castle in Kazimierz, shown in a closer perspective, which is characterized by a synthetic approach and the freedom of the painter's gesture. The decorative linearism of the boughs and the way of depicting the crowns of the pines bring to mind the solutions used by Kietlicz's master, Wyczółkowski. Thanks to the multiplanar composition, the artist rendered the depth and vastness of the landscape. The ornamental, "arcaded" passe-partout perhaps refers to the architectural divisions of the place for which the view was intended.