watercolor, paper pasted on canvas, 47.8 x 68 cm
signed p. d.: jFałat Semmerig [sic!] | 1914 [initials initialed]; above author's number: 975
On the reverse, on the loom, l.d. sticker of the Salon Sprzedaży Dziełków Sztuki at TPSP in Kraków (print, ink, stamp): SALON SPRZEDAŻY DZIEŁ SZTUKI [...] | pl. Szczepański 4 - Phone No. 8 | Author: Fałat Julian 0814 | Address: | Work titled: "Semmering" | Type: aquarium. price; in addition, on the frame a sticker of an auction house in Warsaw.
The landscape was created during the artist's stay with his sons in the Austrian resort of Semmering. In the lower right corner, in addition to the signature, there was an octagonal cartouche with the number 975. It refers to a register kept by the artist of the more important works he submitted for sale.
Fałat created with extraordinary verve and flair. As an undisputed master of watercolor, proficient in this technique, he boldly poured colors on paper, creating unique works. In the presented landscape, the artist does not imitate nature, but with quick projections of contrasting light and dark colors, he gives us a sincere feeling of it.
This is how Anna Król writes about Fałat's painting (Julian Fałat, Stalowa Wola 2009): It is dominated by a panoramic view of the landscape with one invariable accent of the composition, which is the straight line of the horizon dividing the painting into two zones. Some of the compositions are closer to a square, while others are more elongated. The foreground usually shows snow, sometimes marked with animal tracks or enlivened by silhouettes of passing birds. Fałat masterfully synthesizes the landscape and simplifies its forms. He zooms in and exaggerates the snow or the stream by situating it in the foreground, and omits irrelevant details. In sunlight-saturated winter landscapes, he recreates the materiality of snow with extraordinary skill. [...]
Views of winter, imbued with peace, tranquility and devoid of human presence, reveal the transcendent dimension of Nature. By painting a particular fragment of the landscape, Fałat creates landscapes that are universal, timeless, filled with poetic feeling for the world. The series is in fact a record of the artist's emotional presence in the phenomena of nature.
Bibliography:
- Julian Fałat. Jubilee Exhibition for the 10th Anniversary of the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola, Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola, 4 XII 2009 - 7 II 2010, Exhibition in the District Museum in Toruń, 5 III - 3 V 2010, Exhibition in the Copper Museum in Legnica 7 V - 4 VII 2010, curator: Anna Król, Stalowa Wola 2009.
Julian Fałat (Tuligłowy [Lvov district] 1853 - Bystra near Bielsko 1929) - painter and pedagogue - one of the most outstanding Polish artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, member of Polish and European creative associations and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, repeatedly awarded medals at international exhibitions. He studied painting with Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Leon Dembowski at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow (1868-71 and 1881) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Alexander Strähuber and Johan Leonhardt Raab (1877-80). After his studies he spent several months in Rome, in 1884 he was in Paris and Spain, and in 1885 he made a sea voyage around the world. In 1886, while hunting with the Prince Radziwill family in Nesvizh, he met the later German Emperor Wilhelm II - for whom he then worked as a court painter in Berlin in 1886-95. In 1894-96 he collaborated with Wojciech Kossak on a panorama of Berezina. In 1895 he was appointed director of the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, where he thoroughly reformed the teaching system, transforming the school into a modern Academy of Fine Arts (r.1900). He served as rector of the Academy until 1910; after retiring, he settled in Bystra near Bielsko. An excellent watercolorist, he also painted in oils. In his earlier period he worked in the realist convention, with time he lightened and enriched his palette, and in watercolors he introduced an overflowing color patch. He became famous as a painter of hunting scenes usually set in winter scenery; he also painted landscapes, rural genre scenes, portraits, city views.
