Road in a forest

With his work, Józef Chełmoński set timeless standards of depicting the native landscape. His painting, adopting various artistic conventions, connected with the Munich patterns, Paris inspirations, and his own original search, was a lasting reminiscence of memories from journeys to Podolia, Volhynia, Pińsk. The landscapes of Ukraine defined the artist's oeuvre, varied in terms of approaches and painting conventions. Sometimes, these were insightful, realistic studies of village fairs, at other times, dynamic, with illusory perfection depicted horse carriages rushing towards the viewer or a poetic and symbolic image of a Indian summer. The light was always decisive for the creation of mood in Chełmoński's paintings - diffused, flickering, discreetly illuminating vast fields or muddy country yards. The interest in light and colour became the source of the Impressionist revolution in the 1870s, defining the context for Chełmoński's Paris successes. However, his painting did not result from direct observation of nature and registration of subtle processes of seeing, but was based on constantly renewed work of memory, sometimes heroic, at other times sentimental. Memory shaped the nostalgic image of the Ukrainian steppes - appearing in Chełmoński's painting suggestively, in detail, almost tangibly. The light - elusive, dispersed - becomes at the same time a visionary way of catching the detail. Chełmoński's realism was ambiguous - it combined meticulous studies of landscape and figures with imaginative, mystical aspect of merging with nature, gently brought out by intense and magical light.

The scene Droga w lesie [The Road in the Forest] seemingly expresses the opposite tendency. It grows out of an interest in the work of the Barbizon painters and in painting done outdoors. The road shown on the axis is receding in perspective, framed on two sides by the mighty branches of trees. In the distance, in the centre, horse carriages are indistinctly outlined, blending harmoniously with the landscape. The late painting by Chełmoński takes the form of a sketch, impressionistically rendered landscape, vibrated with diffused light. The painting reflects the deep transformations in the artist's work - from reproducing detail to exposing impression.

Marcin Lachowski