This landscape is a true artistic study. Dark stone walls and shadows divide the land into 3 sections, while the sea and sky together receive less than a third of the canvas. Similar diagonal lines can be found in Rihard Jakopič’s depictions of the Sava (though the bends of the river replace the shadows and walls), which were produced 15 years before this painting of Rab. Their acquaintance was mutual, as Jakopič was familiar with Kos’s early landscapes.

Pokrajina iz Raba can be understood as synthesizing several of Kos’s attempts, for instance as an exploration of the kinetic and perspective effects achievable through shadow and diagonal lines (Počitnice, NG S 2329), the use of colored surfaces bordering on the informal (bucolic landscapes from the 1960s), and stylistic dichotomy, as Kos created (socialist) realistic works on the one hand, but expressed himself best in non-ideological, modernist, flat landscapes and still lifes. The same year this painting of Rab came about, the painter also portrayed the revolutionary resistance for the governmental palace (NG S 2760).