Jozef SZERMENTOWSKI, Landscape with a pine forest

watercolor, paper, 26.7 x 33.8 cm, signed: p.d.: on 2.X sketched from nature by J. Szermentowski, time of creation: 19th century.

One of the most outstanding Polish landscape painters of the mid-19th century. Initially studying painting with Franciszek Kostrzewski, he continued his studies at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts with landscape painter Christian Breslauer and privately with Juliusz Kossak. In 1860 he received a scholarship to go to Paris, where he settled permanently and from where he came to the country twice more. At the beginning of his career he referred to the style of Kostrzewski's paintings; in Paris his art matured under the influence of artists from the Barbizon landscape school. He painted Polish motifs, which he recreated from memory or based on photographs. He attached great importance to luministic studies and was a co-founder of the modern landscape direction in Polish painting.