format:22x30,5cm in light passe-partout,woodcut,signed and dated on the board d.p.J.Szermentowski 1875 paris
Józef Szermentowski - painter and watercolorist - was one of the most prominent Polish landscape painters of the mid-19th century. Supported by Tomasz Zieliński, a Kielce collector and patron of artists, he took his first painting lessons from Franciszek Kostrzewski, and further studies at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from the landscape painter Christian Breslauer and privately from 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. In his early work he referred to the style of Kostrzewski's painting, while in Paris his art matured under the influence of artists from the Barbizon landscape school. The subjects of his paintings were Polish motifs - landscapes from the area of Kielce, Sandomierz or Cracow, recreated from memory and based on photographs, into which he often introduced genre scenes. The artist, who attached great importance to luministic studies, was a co-founder of the modern landscape direction in Polish painting.
