Jan Stanislawski, LANDSCAPE WITH WINDOWS, ca. 1905

27.3 x 26.6 cm - oil, cardboard pasted on cardboard signed l.d.: JAN STANISŁAWSKI

On the reverse, along the upper edge (in pencil): J. Stanislawski Ukrainian village; in addition, on the so-called "zaplecka" stick-on card with a handwritten opinion of Dr. Stanislaw Dabrowski, confirming the authenticity of the painting, dated June 1946.



Windmills were a theme that Stanislawski repeated many times in his work. The abandoned windmill painted by the artist in 1883 (see Agra-Art auction 26 VI 2022, item 5) was the first painting that heralded the artist's interest in landscape. In the catalogs of "Art" exhibitions, both in Poland and in Vienna, we can easily find, among others, Windmills on a Farm, a painting auctioned at Agra-Art in June 2012. The collection of the National Museum in Cracow contains the artist's sketchbooks, in which we encounter drawing notes with windmills.



In Stanislawski's paintings, one looks in vain for people. It was nature and the landscapes it created that were most important to the artist. He enclosed huge stretches of landscape in extremely small formats, but they do not lack space and air. In the painting on display we also feel the almost boundless space. The artist gave the main role to the swirling clouds suspended above the village plunged into silence. As usual, it is on the clouds that the main spectacle of light and color takes place. The whole is filled with the tranquility of a lazy summer day.



For it was not for nothing that Ukraine issued him, [...] this our privileged land of sunshine and most melodious songs homeland. [...] remained in his memory other features of this native land, more elusive and, for the time being, more difficult to embody, but pregnant with all the fullness of revelation: its opaque, coastless sea-like, widespread steppes, where all details blur, where objects' own solid coloration disappears, where too-hard contrasts weaken, where colors gently flow into one another, where lines even begin to vibrate in the twitching surface, where everything is atmosphere, a constantly moving and changing light sheep, every now and then melting everything into a different tone, from which, as if from a musical theme, countless variations, transitions and gradations emerge.

Z. Przesmycki, Fragment of a work on Stanislawski [in:] Sztuka Polska. Painting, under the direction of F. Jasieński and A. Łady-Cybulski, Lviv 1903-1904, p. 50



This delightful landscape, full of summer warmth, is an excellent example of the mature work of Jan Stanislawski - a nature worshipper.

Jan Stanislawski (Olshana in Ukraine 1860 - Krakow 1907) - an outstanding landscape painter, printmaker, educator - was one of the most colorful figures of the Krakow artistic milieu of the Young Poland era.
Initially in Warsaw and St. Petersburg, he studied mathematics, then painting under Wojciech Gerson in Warsaw, Władysław Łuszczkiewicz at the Cracow School of Fine Arts, and in 1885-1888 under Carolus Duran in Paris. He traveled extensively in Europe - he went to France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and traveled to Ukraine many times. In 1895 he was in Berlin, where he collaborated with W. Kossak and J. Fałat in painting the Berezina panorama. In 1897 he became a professor of landscape painting at the Cracow School of Fine Arts, the creator of the so-called Cracow School of Landscape. He educated nearly 60 students, including S. Kamocki, H. Szczygliński, S. Filipkiewicz, I. Trusz and S. Galek. He was one of the founders of the Society of Polish Artists Art (1897), a member of the Society of Polish Applied Art (1901). He participated in many exhibitions.
Initially, he painted realistic landscapes based on preparatory studies from nature (numerous surviving sketchbooks). His later fascination with Impressionism led to experiments with light in landscapes and an increasing desire to synthesize color forms. During his travels, he created hundreds, mostly miniature landscapes painted directly in the open air. He worked in printmaking, illustration, designed posters and theatrical decorations.