Landscape with Seafarers 1914

Eugeniusz Zak painted this ‘Landscape with Seafarers’ with oil on canvas, and it feels like a dream. Zak has a way of using color that's both muted and luminous, creating a world that feels just out of reach, like a memory or a fable. Look at the way the paint is applied: thin washes layered to build up the forms of the rocks and the sky. It's almost transparent, which gives the whole scene a hazy, ethereal quality. See how the figures are elongated and their limbs are like rubber? The one figure reclining on the rocks looks oddly relaxed. The gesture of the standing figure is ambiguous, as if he is either lost in thought or pointing something out to his companion. It reminds me of other artists like Giorgio de Chirico, who also created these strange, melancholic landscapes populated by enigmatic figures. But Zak brings his own distinct sensibility to the genre, one that’s both lyrical and slightly unsettling. Art is like a conversation, constantly referring back to what’s come before while finding new things to say.