The Gauja Valley

http://viaf.org/viaf/51317333 · 1891

In this panoramic landscape characteristic of 19th century painting, two seemingly contradictory principles of been combined – the informative and the emotional. In this expansive story about the winding Gauja river and the most characteristic species of trees found there, the artist has not become dryly practical for a moment or pettily garrulous. The landscapist has also refrained from focussing attention to concrete objects in the fore or middle ground, choosing instead to draw the viewer’s gaze deeper into the painting, over the frail stream of smoke, which is the only evidence of human presence. The purposeful selection of the artistic elements serves to convey the painting’s emotional content creating the notion of a harmonious environment, of nature friendly and commensurate with man, and revealing the genuine and deep, while at the same time controlled experience of the artist.