Winter Landscape
Zimska Pokrajina (Winter Landscape), also called Svinjaki (Pigsties), includes the same motif we know from Zima ob Gradaščici (Winter along the Gradaščica). Compared to Zima ob Gradaščici (Winter along the Gradaščica), the painter raised the focal point a bit in this work and moved the scene a bit to the left. The nuance in the bands of color and the way the horizon melts into the background combine to form a convincing effect of depth. Dusk has already descended upon the outhouses, with the yellow of sunlight persisting only in the sky. A mix of several purple and blue shades along with yellow were applied to the dominant white to outline the house and the settled snow. In contrast to the brighter painting, here the brush strokes are freer but less vehement, measured with greater caution, and the entire surface is well slathered with paint, such that we no longer make out the rough surface of the canvas. The synesthetic effects in both works are quite suggestive. It is attractive to imagine that these two works were produced as a teaser or initial sketch of his series Križanke, which Jakopič similarly painted by looking through a window after 1907. The prominence of the purple atop the white speaks to the date of production around 1900, when Jakopič regularly mixed white with violet, especially in his quickly sketched in situ etudes.
Exhibition: Permanent Collection Painting and Sculpture in Slovenia