(Vienna 1847–1922)
Lake Garda, Arco, c. 1914, signed Robert Russ, oil on canvas, 110 x 153 cm, framed

Provenance:
Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 8 October 1931, lot 93;
Collection of Alois (1877–1956) and Josephine (1877–1963) Glingar, Vienna;
Thence by descent - Private Collection, Vienna.

Exhibited:
Künstlerhaus Vienna, memorial exhibition Robert Russ, 1923, cat. no. 432.

Catalogued and illustrated in:
Andrea Winklbauer, Robert Russ. Monografie mit Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, Vienna 2016, cat. rais. I. 442, ill pp. 294, 295.

Künstlerhaus label 1923, 4473 confirmed by Nikolaus Domes, MA.

We owe perhaps the most fitting description of Robert Russ's work to Ludwig Hevesi, the art critic and Viennese original: “South Tyrol under afternoon light: that was his type, and even if he painted something from Lower Austria at a different time of day, it was inwardly dated: ‘Bolzano, September 1st, 5 PM.’”

After his first trip to South Tyrol in 1874, which took him as far as Lake Garda, motifs from this region became a central part of his painterly oeuvre, lasting through his final years of creation. Hevesi’s quote reflects the fact that Russ almost never dated his works, as if he considered chronological classification irrelevant, focusing instead on the timeless, on capturing a unique unity of light, nature, and architecture. After 1900, and even more clearly after 1910, his style shifted toward an impressionistic interpretation. The clear lines began to blur, and instead, objects emerged faintly from an abstract, fantastical tangle of color points and surfaces.

In this impressive view of the courtyard in "Old Arco," the small town north of Lake Garda, one of his last large-format paintings, the artist skillfully combines the flat curtain of colors with the illusionistic depth of spatial perspective, creating a fantastic portrayal of eternal beauty.