Franciszek Kostrzewski (1826, Warsaw – 1911, ibid.), *Meeting by the Forest*, 1893

oil on canvas, 113.5 × 63 cm
signed and dated lower left: “F.KOSTRZ 93”

“The whistling boy returned home. A moment later, a gray-haired gentleman emerged from the other room with a good-natured but troubled expression, and after taking a generous sniff of snuff, he began: ‘My Frank, I’m worried about what to do with you next, and you act as if nothing’s wrong. Either you’re drawing, or whistling, or wandering around the woods... What will become of you?! [...] Franek jumped up to his father, kissed his hand, and said: “I must be a painter!” (That Franek was me.)”
(Franciszek Kostrzewski, *Pamiętnik*, Warsaw 1891, pp. 3–4.)

A fascination with nature accompanied Kostrzewski from his earliest years. The artist recalls: “When I sat down at my school desk, [...] I felt sorry for the forest and the little birds,” “In general, my entire artistic career was greatly influenced by my early youth, spent in the countryside, in a region of mountains, forests, and water.” (Franciszek Kostrzewski, *Diary*, Warsaw 1891, pp. 6; 30)

“From an early age, Kostrzewski had a distinct passion for landscapes. He loved forests and beautiful trees. Landscape was particularly important to the artist, as he personally remarked: “Why is it that, with so many different schools of painting in our country, there are so few landscape painters? After all, our pines, willows, poplars, oaks, and so many other trees provide such wonderful subjects.” He was particularly drawn to the flat landscape of Mazovia. “...I enjoy being most of all,” he wrote, “in the summer in the plains of the Kingdom; neither the Carpathians nor the lands beyond the Bug River seem to attract me.” In the early days of his artistic career, he spent a great deal of time in the Kielce region, where he eagerly depicted the local hilly countryside, dotted with the ruins of historic buildings. Later, it was mainly the forests and sandy plains of Mazovia that found their portrayer in him, brought to life by the figures of the inhabitants of the local villages, so faithfully observed and skillfully rendered.” (I. Jakimowicz, “Franciszek Kostrzewski,” Warsaw 1952, p. 32.)