Artwork
File de album: Munte și apă
File de album: Munte și apă is a print by Carol Pop de Szathmári. It dates from 1874 and is held in the collection of the Bucharest Municipality Museum.
About this work
Overview
Created circa 1874, *File de album: Munte și apă* is an image by Carol Szathmári, a Transylvanian Hungarian artist who lived and worked in Bucharest. The work belongs to an album series that records natural scenery, and it is currently part of the collection of the Museum of Ethnography.
Subject & Meaning
The composition presents a modest landscape in which a solitary mountain rises above a body of water. The muted palette and simplified forms convey a tranquil, almost documentary view of the terrain, reflecting Szathmári’s interest in recording place rather than dramatizing it.
Technique & Style
Executed with loose, sketch‑like brushwork, the image employs soft blues and grays for the sky, contrasted with darker browns and whites that suggest rock and possible snow. The water’s edge is rendered with an uneven line, indicating a rapid, perhaps preliminary, handling of the surface.
History & Provenance
Although Szathmári is best known for his pioneering combat photography during the Crimean War, he spent much of his career painting and lithographing. This particular piece, part of his album series, entered the Museum of Ethnography’s holdings at an unspecified date, where it remains on view as an example of his landscape work.
Artist & collection
Artist
Carol Szathmari (Romanian: Carol Popp de Szathmari, Hungarian: Szathmáry Pap Károly; 11 January 1812, Kolozsvár – 3 July 1887, Bucharest) was a Romanian painter, lithographer, and photographer of Transylvanian Hungarian…
