material: oil on canvas
dimensions: 121 × 185 cm
description: In the last phase of his career, Gierymski returned to moody paintings, focussing on the colour harmony of the composition. He stopped painting genre scenes and started to employ landscape and urban motifs shown in the early evening or at night. At that time he was fascinated by luminous and colour effects with a restricted, low scale, requiring the use of a wide gamut of half- and quartertones depending on the level of darkness and the intensity of fog in the air, the effects of the play of light on the moving surface of water and reflections in the wet cobbled surface of the street after rain. Evening on the Seine depicts a part of the river at dusk, with the distant outline of Pont du Caroussel and the edifice of the Louvre showing faintly near the wharf. The upper part of the sky lightens with the faint glow of twilight silvering the surface of the water and adding a pinkish gleam to the mists hanging above the river and the darkened horizon. In an attempt to convey the flickering of the river moved by gliding barges, reflecting the setting sun, the artist used the method of divisionism by applying thin streaks of countless hues of light blues, greys and orange separately next to each other. Wacława Milewska
exposition: The Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art in Sukiennice,
The Cloth Hall, 1, Main Market Square
key: Realism, polish impressionism, beginnings of symbolism >>>
dimensions: 121 × 185 cm
description: In the last phase of his career, Gierymski returned to moody paintings, focussing on the colour harmony of the composition. He stopped painting genre scenes and started to employ landscape and urban motifs shown in the early evening or at night. At that time he was fascinated by luminous and colour effects with a restricted, low scale, requiring the use of a wide gamut of half- and quartertones depending on the level of darkness and the intensity of fog in the air, the effects of the play of light on the moving surface of water and reflections in the wet cobbled surface of the street after rain. Evening on the Seine depicts a part of the river at dusk, with the distant outline of Pont du Caroussel and the edifice of the Louvre showing faintly near the wharf. The upper part of the sky lightens with the faint glow of twilight silvering the surface of the water and adding a pinkish gleam to the mists hanging above the river and the darkened horizon. In an attempt to convey the flickering of the river moved by gliding barges, reflecting the setting sun, the artist used the method of divisionism by applying thin streaks of countless hues of light blues, greys and orange separately next to each other. Wacława Milewska
exposition: The Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art in Sukiennice,
The Cloth Hall, 1, Main Market Square
key: Realism, polish impressionism, beginnings of symbolism >>>