Winter Tale

Today we continue our special partnership with the National Museum in Krakow. Enjoy!  :)

The art of the end of the century was dominated by Symbolism, particularly clear in Young Poland landscape painting (the pictorial equivalent of the “inner landscape”—the artist's soul). A revered landscape painter, with a predilection for nature symbolism, was Ferdynand Ruszczyc. In 1907, after the death of Jan Stanislawski, the artist took over the chair of landscape at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. 

In Ruszczyc's landscape paintings we find a fascination with the power of nature's elements, especially water and earth, and its sensual beauty. In the Winter Tale, the artist captured the charm of a fragment of forest made unreal by the hoarfrost. Working on the painting, Ruszczyc noted in his diary: “I started the Winter Tale. A heavy frost. A young tree in the lane was covered strangely with frost. I drew one.” A few months later he wrote: “The picture has finally progressed a bit. It has acquired more of a sort of winter fairy tale, I want it to remind me of the fantastic flowers and arabesques you see on the windows in the cold.” The view of a frosted forest clearing and a dark pond, captured during a heavy frost, thanks to the stylization, takes on a mysterious and fairy-tale feel. The artist achieved this mood by exploiting the subtlety of Art Nouveau forms of mainly wavy and straight lines, forming an arabesque of trees and branches, and through a palette of white and silver colors.

This is such a lovely depiction of winter. :)  Would you like to see it in one of our calendars for this year?  :)  Let us know and for now enjoy your DailyArt Calendars for 2025, the last copies are now on -40% sale! 

P.S. Is it snowing outside of your window? Even if not, here are 7 snowy landscape paintings for you to enjoy!