Author: Stabrowski Kazimierz, 1869 - 1929
Created: early 20th century.
Material / technique: paper, pastel.
Dimensions: 49x67 cm.
Signature: K. Stabrowski (in the bottom-right corner of the painting).
The motif of the winding serpentine road through the mountains, also found in the paintings of M. K. Čiurlionis (The Funeral Symphony (1903), The Serpent’s Sonata (1908), express the mutual impact that the student and the teacher had on each other. The allusion to a serpent in this painting is not accidental. The Lithuanian word for serpent, žaltys, comes from the words želti and žaliuoti, meaning to sprout and to grow green respectively. K. Stabrowski never tried to hide his Lithuanian origins, so the interpretation of the serpent, a symbol of the never-ending revival of nature, could not be unfamiliar to him. On the other hand, snakes and serpents in other cultures and beliefs also symbolise eternity, a vital creative power of the universe, and these creatures are sometimes considered the intermediaries between this world and the world beyond it. This image was very convenient for symbolising a road that leads from the worldly realm into the spiritual one, expressed as the mysterious mountain settlement, engulfed in a hazy blueness.
Reference: ‘Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’. Kaunas: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, 2016, Kat. Nr. 8, P. 52.
Exhibitions: ‘Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’, 2015 September 24 - 2016 January 3, M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum,Kaunas; "The Break of Dawn. Lithuanian Visual Arts Prior to 1918", 10 May 2018 – 31 May 2019, M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas.
Published: Kazimierz Stabrowski, the Teacher of M. K. Čiurlionis’. Kaunas: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, 2016, Kat. Nr. 8, P. 52; Antanas Andrijauskas „Reflections of Ideas of Theosophical Philosophy of Art in Painting by Stabrauskas and Čiurlionis“, Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, 2021, Vilnius, P. 120.
Photographs: Kazimierz Stabrowski (1869–1929); "The Break of Dawn. Lithuanian Visual Arts Prior to 1918", 10 May 2018 – 31 May 2019, M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas.