Rozentals, Janis

Rozentāls, Janis 

Born Mar. 6(18), 1866, in the village of Bebri, in present-day Saldus Raion, Latvian SSR; died Dec. 13 (26), 1916, in Helsinki. Latvian painter.

From 1888 to 1894, Rozentāls studied with V. E. Makovskii at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. During this period he was a member of the Rūķis (Toiler) circle. From 1901 to 1915 he worked in Latvia. Rozentāls’ works, which include After the Liturgy (1894), On the Way From the Cemetery (1895), and Returning From Work (1903), are similar to the works of the late peredvizhniki (the “wanderers”—a progressive art movement). They provide a truthful representation of the work and life of the Latvian people, while at the same time they bring out the picturesque beauty of the subjects. Rozentāls was the first Latvian painter to portray the stratification of classes in the Latvian countryside. His works also include a number of expressive portraits of his contemporaries (Portrait of P. Feders, 1901).

All the above-mentioned paintings are in the Art Museum of the Latvian SSR in Riga.

REFERENCE

Skulme, U., and A. Lapiņŝ. Janis Rozentāls. Riga. 1954.