Jozef MARSZEWSKI, MIDDLE-MOMORSKIE LANDSCAPE

Oil, canvas, 31 x 48 cm, signed partially hidden under the frame l.d.: [Jó]zef Marszewski 70 P. / [...]0 P.

He studied painting at the private school of Aleksander Kokular in Warsaw and/or with Wincenty Dmochowski in Vilnius. In 1853-1856 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg under Matvei N. Vorobyov, receiving medals for his schoolwork n in 1853 a great and a small silver medal for View of the Sea and View of the Neva during the Krys, and again in 1855 a great silver medal for View of the City of Revla. In 1857 he went abroad and spent the next few years traveling around Europe, sending his paintings to exhibitions in Krakow, Lviv and Warsaw. He then visited Paris several times, was in Spain and Switzerland, lived in Rome for several years, and in 1858 and 1864 stayed in Düsseldorf, where he studied with Andreas Achenbach. He also traveled to Ukraine, Lithuania and Courland, and made trips to the Tatra Mountains (1865 and 1866). Around 1872 he settled in Warsaw, where he spent the last years of his life. In 1873, after losing the money he had deposited in the bank, he fell into a deep depression, which in time turned into a mental illness. Marszewski was primarily a landscape painter. During his travels and wanderings, he painted both views from Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Courland, as well as from Ukraine and Lithuania (especially around Vilnius) and the Tatra Mountains. He treated the landscape in an emotional way, typical of Romantic painters, trying to convey the moods of nature. He painted mysterious nocturnal landscapes with a pale gloomy moon and lit up by the setting sun, views with characteristic picturesque motifs of water, rocks, ruins, churches or windmills. It is known that he also painted portraits and religious scenes. In his early period, he also painted the battle composition Crossing the Berezina River (1847).