Landscape

Kietlicz-Rayski's landscape was associated with the typical aesthetics of the turn of the century. The artist, coming from the landowning tradition, did not look for new styles typical of the avant-garde experiments of the 20th century. He was guided by a clear belief in artistic creation that art should be understandable and pleasant to the recipient, and at the same time express the continuity of tradition.

The artist, brought up in the Kościuszko tradition and attachment to the native Kielce landscape, in his mature life became associated with Lublin, where he was an important animator of artistic and theatrical life, and finally a documentalist of old urban buildings. Teki lubelskie [Lublin portfolios] have become an important testimony of the Veduta and the life of the city's citizens in the first quarter of the 20th century. Landscape became a characteristic theme for the artist's work, creating a romantic, often nostalgic expression of the artist's attitude towards nature.

Painted in bronze with a small pond in the foreground, the landscape from the collection of the National Museum in Lublin is part of this important trend in Kietlicz 'painting. Densely filled with trees and heavy, round masses of brown clouds, it refers to the atmospheric 19th-century paintings originating from the Romantic tradition and continued in the Munich stimmung school. Rayski gave his image a synthetic, concise expression, using a gentle, flexible contour, filled with uniform colors, giving evidence of interest in the symbolically treated landscape of the Nabis, Ślewiński and the direct teacher of Kietlicz - Leon Wyczółkowski. These inspirations shape the native landscape of a village near Kielce or near Lublin as a paradigm of attachment to nature and the land.

Marcin Lachowski