Jurgis Preiss created ‘Landscape. The Seine’ in Paris in April 1937. This work belongs to the European, the brightest period in the artist’s work: in the 1930s he and his wife worked for the Soviet intelligence, they often moved from one city to another in connection with the tasks. At that time painting helped him to cover his political activity, but it was not a mere hobby - in the same 1937 his first solo exhibition was held in Paris and was favorably met by art critics.
During those years Preiss worked mostly in the genres of portrait, self-portrait and still life, but sometimes he created landscapes. In this picture, the artist depicted the stone Saint-Michel Bridge, which is located in the center of Paris. It crosses the south branch of the Seine River and connects Saint-Michel square with the island of Cité, and it was named after the nearby chapel. Like other French landscapes of the artist, this one is made in a chamber, impressionistic manner. The bright light in the picture dissolves the shades of bright colors - in this way Jurgis Preiss tried to emphasize fluidity and fragility of the world.
Saint-Michel Bridge was depicted by many famous masters, one of them was French post-impressionist painter Albert Marquet. In the 1908 painting he painted it on a clear summer day, and in 1910 - during a severe flood. The artist emphasized the gloomy atmosphere of the later canvas with dark, simple colors, and with deliberately conditional, distorted forms - for example, figures of people in the picture are marked with heavy black strokes.
