Young highlander and Highlander Girl

Young highlander and Highlander Girl
Kotsis, Aleksander (1836 - 1877)  
AK  
olej / papier na tekturze  
35 x 56  
ok. 1870  
Galeria Rogalińska Edwarda Aleksandra Raczyńskiego  
MNP FR 39  
Fundacja im. Raczyńskich przy Muzeum Narodowym w Poznaniu  
Galeria Rogalińska Edwarda Aleksandra Raczyńskiego  
Galeria Sztuki Polskiej koniec XVIII w. do 1939 r.  

Young highlander and highlander girl its, next to a portrait Sabała and an old highlander woman from the same time, a perfect example of portrait painting by Kotsis, combining the ability to extract psychological depth of portrayed characters with tasteful colors of cursorily treated outfit and neutral backgrounds. These portraits were created during the period of the Kotsis artistic -sightseeing trips to Vienna and Munich, which confirms the assumption that even there, this "lover of the Tatra mountains and mountain culture" painted alongside alpine landscapes, work related to the Polish mountains.

Kotsis was at that time already fully formed artist, a graduate of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied in the years 1850 to 1860 under W. Stattler, W. Łuszczkiewicz and A. Płonczyński and scholarship holder of the universities of Vienna, Warsaw, Paris and Brussels. Having a common workshop in Munich with A. Kozakiewicz and Streitt, he perfected his skills, while remaining faithful to his predilections for portraying everyday life of peasants, highlanders, Jews and children.

Having with his friends, among which was Z. Sidorowicz, trips to the mountains of Bavaria, Kotsis drew, as he wrote, "as to the composition and terms (...) by itself, motivating on the themes of folk fabric of his own feelings." This statement to a large extent explains the lyrical and moody nature of generic paintings of the artist.

[dr E.Leszczyńska]