European school; 20th century.

European school; 20th century.
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner "B. Stefaest".
Measurements: 50 x 75 cm.
During this period many European artists moved away from the strict academic representation to explore the atmosphere, the light and the visual impression of the landscape, direct inheritance of movements such as Impressionism and its later derivations. The painting shows a view of a river or industrial port, with boats and port structures barely suggested. The scene is constructed with loose brushstrokes and soft tones, ochers, blues and grays, which prioritize the feeling of mist and distance over the precise detail. This way of working the pictorial matter is reminiscent of the atmospheric tradition initiated by artists such as J. M. W. Turner, whose influence extended to numerous European landscape painters.
In the context of the 20th century, this type of landscape also reflects the transformation of the European territory by industrialization and the development of river and port infrastructures, subjects that many painters approached from a poetic point of view.