Dnieper River

Between 1885 and 1893, Włodzimierz Nałęcz studied at St Petersburg Academy under Pavel Chistiakov and Valery Yakobi, specialising in landscape painting under Ivan Aivazovsky, Lev Lagorio and possibly Michael Clodt von Jürgensburg. He then developed his craft in Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Germany, England and France. From Paris, he went on numerous painting trips. Between 1899 and 1906, he lived in Zhytomyr, and in 1906 he moved permanently to Warsaw. From 1909 he explored the Baltic coast. In 1920 he participated in the taking over of Pomerania by the Polish authorities. In the same year, he bought a property near the lighthouse on Rozewie, part of the so-called Lisi Jar, where he built a villa called Nałęczówka and a studio on the seaside beach. He spent the summer months there, and between 1922 and 1939, he organised courses in seascape painting. In the National Museum in Szczecin there is a painting entitled Dniepr wiosenny [The Spring Dnieper] from 1918, which shows that during studying seascapes, the artist also happened to depict the river landscape of his small homeland. The view of the river floodplain is presented from above. The arches of the banks are closed by a sandy area under the upper edge. In the foreground, the bottom left corner is filled with a high sandy bank with faint vegetation. Several shades of blue of the river are interspersed in the painting. The landscape is built on contrasts of the colour of water and sand on the shore.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska