Although he spent most of his adult life living in Paris, the painter and graphic artist Konstanty Brandel often visited his native Poland and continued to consider himself a Polish artist. His work may be described as Symbolist and has much in common with that of figures such as Odilon Redon and Gustave Doré, although Hieronymus Bosch, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Francisco de Goya have also been cited as possible influences.

Brandel’s imagery often includes architecture or landscape fantastically interpreted, with exaggerated and highly improbable structures, scale and perspective. These fantasies are frequently inhabited by men, women and animals engaged in strange or ritualistic behaviour. The figures increase the sense of vast dimension and are often endowed with supernatural powers such as the ability to float or fly.

Despite its optimistic title (which may or may not be ironic) this landscape is deeply disturbing, particularly in its symmetrical treatment of foreshore, lake, island and distant mountains. Of the two barely discernable figures, that on the left seems to have metamorphosed into a tree or rock.