Villa Borghese

Aleksander Gierymski painted Villa Borghese in Rome around 1900 during his final years, when his health was failing but his observational powers remained acute. The Villa Borghese gardens — one of Rome's great public parks — provided the Polish painter with an environment that combined the formal organization of Italian landscape gardening with the informal pleasures of a public open space. Gierymski had been living in Rome since the early 1890s, and the gardens became one of his favorite subjects, explored at different times of day and in different seasons. The National Museum in Warsaw holds this painting as part of their Gierymski holdings.

Gierymski applies his refined sensitivity to atmospheric light to the Roman garden setting. His handling of the particular quality of Italian light filtering through trees shows a painter who had thoroughly mastered outdoor observation. The palette is warmer and more saturated than his earlier Polish subjects, responding to the different chromatic environment of the south.