Dusty Country Road II

In 1874 Munk�csy visited the town of his childhood in Hungary, B�k�scsaba. The two versions (executed in 1874 and 1883) of the painting Dusty Country Road commemorate the painter’s visit to his homeland.

A cart is moving on the road slowly, stirring up the dust painted pink by the beams of the sun. This canvas is a pink vision flooded with light, a snapshot almost approaching plein-air painting. It sheds light on Munk�csy’s new approach to Nature, and it also reveals a potential path, which the painter, unfortunately, never pursued. Contemporary critiques often called this small masterpiece impressionist: he himself, however, refused to have anything to do with this style. The only other painting in which such a painterly approach is evident is “Dusty Road I”: in the paintings to come he returned to the style of realism.