“Pogradeci” – a winter landscape by the master Anastas Kostandini

In this painting, the renowned artist Anastas Kostandini depicts a winter view of Pogradec, his hometown, where the roofs of the houses and the streets are covered in fresh snow, lending the whole landscape the sense of stillness and cold so characteristic of winter.

The houses are simple in structure, with steep roofs covered in snow, while larger and taller buildings can be made out in the background, perhaps representing the modern part of the town.

A master of painting and mosaic, Anastas Kostandini is one of the co-authors of the mosaic “Shqipëria” (Albania), the restored mosaic on the façade of the National History Museum in Tirana, completed in 1981.

In 1991 he was awarded the title “Piktor i merituar” (Merited Painter).

Besides painting, he also works in mosaic and mural painting, and some of these works are among the most important in Albania.

He also illustrates poetry and prose. He has taken part in, and organised, many painters’ colonies.

Taso has taken part in a large number of group exhibitions as well as solo shows, some of which have been held in the USA, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece and elsewhere. /MAPO/