Desert. Resting in Mount Lebanon. From the journey to Palestine

Desert. Resting in Mount Lebanon. From the Journey to Palestine shows the high-altitude landscape of the Lebanese mountains — the cedar-forested range that rises dramatically from the Mediterranean coast. Mount Lebanon's landscape differs markedly from the desert that surrounds it: cooler, more heavily vegetated, its rock formations shaped by different forces than the Sinai or Negev. Ciągliński shows travelers or animals resting within this landscape, adding a human scale to the mountain vastness and connecting to the long tradition of the traveler at rest in a foreign land.

The mountain landscape calls for a different palette than the desert studies — cooler and greener, with rock and sky in cooler register. The resting figures provide human scale and a note of narrative within the landscape. Paint handling is open and atmospheric.