Normandy

A rare find from a collector’s perspective, this Radimský work from the artist’s long stay in France, where he often spent time on the Normandy coast, demonstrates his skill in selecting and faithfully capturing motifs – it is no mere illustration of a fragment of landscape, but rather a sensitive rendering of the atmosphere and mood the landscape evoked in the artist. In a characteristically impressionistic manner, the fundamentally plein-air painter reveals himself, faithfully capturing the essence of a specific location at a particular time of day and season with a cultivated and balanced colour palette. In the execution and chosen style, which sometimes employs impasto layers of paint, he transcended academic conventions, drew inspiration from the Barbizon masters, and presented a landscape grounded in direct observation and personal experience. While the painting is an inland scene and lacks the white coastal cliffs often painted by the author, it is most likely a landscape from Normandy. This is supported by, among other things, the distinct, characteristic features, particularly the chosen colour palette, and the bold composition centred on a path leading into the depths of the painting. The artist substantially softened his brushwork here; its delicate style at times approaches pointillism, or rather divisionism, another element often present in his canvases from the turn of the century. The light conditions are also superbly captured and the listed work, which can be viewed without exaggeration as comparable to French specimens of the time, is an artefact that deserves the attention of all true art lovers. This specific canvas is thus a fitting illustration of Radimský’s essential role in the reception of French plein-air Impressionism in the Czech lands at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Assessed in consultation with Prof. J. Zemina and Mgr. M. Dospěl, PhD. The expert opinion of Mgr. P. Kubík is attached.