The Fountain in the Park of Borghese Villa
Author: Stabrowski Kazimierz, 1869 - 1929
Created: 1924.
Material / technique: paper on cardboard, pastel, tempera.
Dimensions: 50x68 cm.
Signature: K. Stabrowski (in the bottom-right corner of the painting).
During his travels through Italy, K. Stabrowski was swayed by the country’s ideals of beauty and its ancient Roman, Renaissance, and Baroque heritage when visiting the Villa Borghese gardens and gallery. In 1924, Stabrowski composed a painting depicting a fragment of the Villa Borghese park and its fountain. In the foreground, one can see a small fountain, gracefully spraying water upwards, which lands straight into the surrounding basin. Subtle colour transitions and contrasting light and darkness elements form a spectacularly realistic image of flowing water. The shade of green used to colour the land expresses the feeling that one experiences on a refreshing afternoon during spring. The composition of the trees casting elegant dark shadows and the light shining on the pathways and on the trunks of the trees form a panaesthetic sense of being. It encompasses nature-deifying ideas that most symbolists are familiar with.
Reference: ‘Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’. Kaunas: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, 2016, Kat. Nr. 7, P. 50.
Exhibitions: ‘Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’, 2015 September 24 - 2016 January 3, M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum,Kaunas; "Under Italian Skies. Lithuanian artists’ works from the 18th - first half of the 20th centuries", 1 December 2017 - 26 August, 2018 Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius Picture Gallery.
Published: Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’. Kaunas: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, 2016, Kat. Nr. 7, P. 50; Under Italian Skies. Lithuanian artists’ works from the 18th - first half of the 20th centuries" Historical Review, Catalogue, Part I, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius, 2019, P. 95, 352. Cat. 450.
Photographs: Kazimierz Stabrowski (1869–1929); display in the exhibition "Under Italian Skies. Lithuanian artists’ works from the 18th - first half of the 20th centuries", 1 December 2017 - 26 August 2018, Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius Picture Gallery.