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1932 Innsbruck/Tyrol - 2011 Vienna
- Title
- „Umbria Cantata“
- Time
- 1987
- signed
- lower right: "Prachensky 87"
- Technique
- acrylic on canvas
- Measurements
- 65×51 in
A stay in Umbria was a fixed item on the program of many trips to Italy by the Austrian painter Markus Prachensky. This beautiful region in the heart of Italy has no access to the sea, but impresses with its lush vegetation, wild romantic mountain ranges and numerous watercourses. Correspondingly colorful and life-affirming are the paintings to which this magnificent central Italian landscape inspired Markus Prachensky.
The series „Umbria Cantata“ was created in 1987 and surprises with an unusually concrete motif for the painter: the view from a window onto a steep mountain path. The zigzag line created from different shades of red is a reminder – translated into Prachensky’s gestural pictorial language – of a path winding its way up the mountainside. Two vertical lines on the left side of the composition echo tall trees that framed the view from Prachensky’s lodgings.
As with most of his series, the title of „Umbria Cantata“ gives a clue to the music the artist listened to during the creative process. In this case, it was Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas, whose baroque sounds filled the painter’s studio and contributed to the atmospheric dynamics of this painting.