Edge of Abruzzi: Boat with Three People on a Lake

Winifred Knights may have produced as few as five significant paintings across a 25-year career and yet, in British art of the interwar years, almost nothing looks quite like her work. This picture, showing Lake Piediluco between Rome and Perugia, is one of those rare survivors.

By the time she painted the Piediluco lake scene, Knights was living in Italy, absorbed in the Quattrocento painters she adored: Masaccio, Giotto, "and all the rest of that blessed company." Their influence shows everywhere here. The trees don't seem to grow so much as sit placed, arranged with the same deliberate stillness as a Piero della Francesca panel. Color is muted—dusty mauve, ocher, gray-green—and the whole scene feels suspended between a vision and a parable.

The picture's calm is deceptive, though. A third of the canvas is given over to flat, silent water, and three figures sit together in a boat, emotionally distant from one another for reasons Knights never explains. Where are they going? Why is the fertile lakeside land so empty of people? The painting offers no answers.

P.S. If you love landscapes that tell a story, take a look at our Landscapes 50 Postcards Set. Featuring breathtaking views and atmospheric scenes by artists from different periods, this collection celebrates the many ways painters have transformed nature into something unforgettable.

P.P.S. Here are the finest lake paintings in art history!