Stanislaw KAMOCKI (1875-1944), Snopki

Stanisław KAMOCKI (1875-1944), Snopki
oil, panel
50 x 70 cm
syng. l.d.: St. Kamocki

In 1891 he graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, studying there under Florian Cynk, Józef Unierzyski, Leon Wyczółkowski, Jacek Malczewski and Jan Stanislawski. Thanks to a scholarship, he continued his studies in Paris. He also visited Italy, Germany and Switzerland. In 1919 he took over the chair of landscape at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. As a teacher, he continued Stanislavsky's program, organizing plein-air landscape paintings. It was from Stanislawski that he took over his love of nature, sensitivity of observation, and emotional attitude to the landscape of the Polish countryside. Hence, frequent motifs appearing in his paintings are: cornfields, potato fields, haystacks, trees, manor houses, country churches viewed at different times of the year. He searched for these themes while wandering through the villages of Podolia, Volhynia, Spisz, and especially the lands of Podkraka and Podhale. He painted his pictures in the open air. In the first period of his work (1900-15) he painted with thick oil paste, which he applied generously, achieving the effect of a concrete material painting surface. In doing so, he operated with a not very wide range of colors. In summer landscapes he used heavy greens with not too strong valor tension. He generally used local colors and remained true to the subject. In the later period, paint was laid down in cursory, broad brush strokes, giving the paintings a matte surface. Among other things, he belonged to the art groups "Sztuka", the Vienna Secession, as well as the Union of Polish Artists and the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.