Evening

Evening from 1900 is one of Wojciech Weiss's most Symbolist early works, using the liminal hour of dusk to explore states of consciousness that hover between waking and dream, between the social world and an inner psychological landscape. Weiss was deeply influenced by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, whose exhibitions in Vienna and Kraków in the late 1890s had made a profound impression on young Polish painters; the Symbolist Evening paintings of this period reflect Munch's influence filtered through a specifically Kraków Symbolist sensibility. The Young Poland movement to which Weiss belonged treated such atmospheric, psychologically charged landscape subjects as central to its artistic program. The National Museum in Warsaw holds this among its Weiss holdings.

Weiss uses the failing light of evening to justify a compressed, closely valued palette of deep blues, dark greens, and warm ochres, with the sky's residual light providing a narrow band of contrast against which the landscape silhouettes are placed. The handling is more atmospheric and less defined than his daylight paintings.