Mountain landscape

The pastel depicts a brown-tone rocky massif at the seashore. Alongside water and clouds, mountains supporting the skies are one of Stabrowski’s artistically interesting impressions of his travels. Here, as well as in most of the artist’s creations, a seemingly realistic image expresses symbolism – an aim to ascend up the mountain towards a higher level of spirituality. In the composition, which expresses the sacredness of spiritualised nature, one can see mountain peaks that shoot upwards, seemingly touching the skies. This image is like a perspective of a physical transformation, a vertical line of internal change. If one was to ascend along this line, all of the irrelevant worldly issues would be left behind at the foot of the mountain, while the main aim would become the unchanging spiritual heights. The endless spaces formed by the vertical lines of the mountains, the image of eternity, and the vision of breaking free awakens the feeling of a spiritual realm of other dimensions. The symbolistic plasticity of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the student of Kazimierz Stabrowski, was also characterised by mountain motifs. We can see them in the Zodiac Signs collection of paintings (1906) as well as in News (1904), Serenity (1904), and Mountain (1906). While searching for motifs to express their ideas, both of the artists turned their attention towards the skies, where the minuscule dissolves in the relief of the mountains and becomes the greatness of nature.