Landscape "Pines and Spruces (Svisloch Forest)" [oil, canvas, 73 x 60 cm, Luhansk Regional Museum of Art, Luhansk, Ukraine]
Zhukovsky was particularly drawn to forests untouched by civilisation. He was an avid hunter, both in Russia and Poland. He fearlessly entered the forests of the northern governorates of Moscow, Tver, Murom, the Belovezhskaya and Svisloch Forests, Lithuania and Polesia. There he hunted and created images of nature. His work includes a whole series of landscapes in which the motif of the forest is depicted: "Winter in the Białowieża Forest" (1934), "Towards Evening" (1911), "Spruce Forest" (1906,), "Pines and Spruces. (Swislocka Forest)".
The last mentioned landscape was painted in the 1930s. It deserves special attention because in it Żukowski refreshed his painting technique - here he did not juxtapose large colour planes, but only combinations of colour patches of various sizes, right down to point brushstrokes. Atmosphere is born out of tonality, light intensity and aerial perspective. The motif of the forest or wilderness itself is unpretentious, but the artist has given it a special, rich artistic expression. Each of Żukowski's landscapes contains certain colour discoveries, both because of the motif itself and the uniqueness of the impression evoked in the viewer. The trunks of coniferous trees are painted in a whole range of shades of purple, blue and light grey, through which the natural dark brown colour of the bark barely shines through. Unwittingly - under the influence of the sun's rays - one can succumb to an illusion: the coniferous trees, their needles and their sticky sap in the sunlight give off an aromatic fragrance that can be well sensed in the heated air of a warm day. The crowns of the pines and spruces have the richest range of colours, from light green to dark green, sometimes turning dark blue. The ground is covered with long, horizontal, dark blue and purple shadows of tall trees. The horizontal rhythm of these shadows, combined with the vertical rhythm of the trees, introduces a linear order, conveying the integrity and natural reality of the captured fragment of the Svisloch Forest. The luscious and free brushstroke, found in the tone of the colours, becomes both space and light. This allows the painter to easily express the volatility of the moment, and to create a vibrant texture on the coloured surface of the canvas and convey a sensual delight in impulsive nature.