Landscape from Zakopane

After 1918, when he moved to Zakopane, where he lived until the end of his short life (1923), mountain landscape became one of his most important themes. His work from that time was in line with the fundamental tendencies in the development of visual arts, based on the principle of simplification, geometrisation of form or the use of pure colour, painterly gesture and expression.

The painting from 1918 confronts the feeling of nature as an element, exposing a bravura painterly game. Executed in a small format, demanding close-up works by monumentalising visual effects. Divided into two parts, it contrasts the curved concave horizon with the dark part of the ground and the towering bright mass of clouds, violently painted in short, irregular strokes. The varied parts of the painting are shaped by changing textural and colour effects, showing the landscape as a clash of atmospheric masses and as an expansive element – the painting gives the impression of a movement of unpredictable energy.

The small format betrays the painting's intended use as a home interior decoration. The artist skilfully directs the action of the menacing forces of nature brought out by the thick consistency of paint and the sweeping painterly gesture; the painting gives a feeling of the unpredictability of nature in the domestic comfort zone. Rerutkiewicz's Zakopane views referred to and continued the romantic idea of sublimity – a state of passion and experience of extreme danger, observed, however, from a safe distance. Thus, sublimity led to a state of serenity and sublime aesthetic experience.