Ivan Trusz (1869, Vysotsko – 1940, Lviv), "Neapolitan Landscape"

oil on cardboard, 33.5 x 42.5 cm
signed lower left: “Iw. Trusz”

“Although the master’s outstanding artistic talent fully blossomed in portraiture and genre compositions, landscape painting occupies the most important place in his body of work, bearing witness to the artist’s extraordinary admiration for the beauty of nature. His landscapes, painted at various times of day, under different lighting conditions, and in different seasons, are imbued with a unique lyrical and philosophical depth, permeated by a distinct neo-Romantic mood. To a certain extent, the artist’s withdrawal from Galician social life after World War I and his avoidance of social engagements found their clearest expression in the creation of works devoted to nature, which, in his interpretation, transformed into complex painterly-philosophical structures, full of reflections on the existential issues of life.”
(“Sunlit Chords in Ivan Trusz’s Palette: Works from the Collection of the Andrzej Szeptycki National Museum in Lviv,” ed. O. Biła, Sopot 2011, p. 8.)