Rome. Fontana Dei Cavalli Marini

Author: Stabrowski Kazimierz, 1869 - 1929

Created: 1911 m.

Material/technique : paper / pastel.

Dimensions: 48x65 cm.

Signature: AD. K. Stabrowski (signature in the bottom-right corner of the painting).

The Fountain in a Park, a painting by Kazimieras Stabrauskas, a symbolist and teacher to Čiurlionis, exudes a mystical ambience and a premonition of fatal existence. The author expertly creates the picture of a park at dusk, using his paintbrush to sculpt the natural landscape, turning the usual symbolist categories of the dark, water, sunset into reflections of the inner state. The fragment of a park at dusk captured in the painting is merely an outward reality, with a depth of inner experiences hiding underneath. The fountain, a favourite motif of Stabrauskas’s work and one that has a substantial semantic charge, signifies perpetual movement, renewal, transformation of spiritual energy. Suffused with the evening sun, the trees look alive against the reddish sky, adding to the atmosphere of foreboding and drama. Stabrauskas painted a number of mysterious park ponds and fountains during his visits to Italy at different phases of his life. This landscape with a fountain would fall into the group of pictures that convey spiritual pursuit and philosophical thought with visionary images in which the boundaries of make-believe and reality disappear, just like they do in the creative work of any symbolist. Tranquillity and concentration radiates from the frozen forms of classical architecture and the trees with their musical rhythm, which are set into motion by the masterfully portrayed flow of the living water. Contrary to Stabrauskas’s other paintings of bodies of water that sparkle with colouristic effects and contrasting sunlight, this one stands out in its melancholic look and inner composure. The artist marvels at the silhouette of the three-tier fountain suspended on sculptures of running horses and the trickle of water as it cascades down, rises up in graceful jets, whirls restlessly on the surface of the fountain. The value of this painting, done at the peak of the artist’s maturity, lies in its rarity, the significance of the symbolistic ideals, the artistic suggestion, and the aesthetical parameters. (By Dr Lijana Natalevičienė)