Lot 44

Adolf Chwala (1836 - 1900) DRYING STREAM

Adolf Chwala’s work was most influenced by the Max Haushofer school at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. After moving to Vienna, alpine motifs started to appear in his work. He paints the rippling landscape with hills, bluffs and streams winding through the valley with love and meticulous accuracy. Chwala’s adept experimentation with light envelopes the painting in ambience and stylization - small cloud partially overshadows the landscape and allows us to percept contrasts more accurately. The hills in the distance, shrouded in a pastel mist, show clear outlines of rocks and windows of the ruin. An interesting detail in Chwala's works is a presence of human staffage - here a figure sitting along a river basin. The stones in the river and semitranslucent treetops are painted with tangible realism. From the expert assessment of PhDr. Naděžda Blažíčková-Horová: "The presented painting is an indisputable and beautiful work of landscape painter Adolf Chwala, whose works are still in high demand by art-loving audiences. For the content of moody landscapes we consider Chwala to be romantic, but with his painting method he has already turned to the realism of a detailed concrete descriptivness. "