Even before World War I, some of his compositions were in line with the idyllic tradition represented by works of such artists as Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain (called le Lorraine), Antoine Watteau, and most of all Puvis de Chavannes, whose "Poor Fisherman" at the Louvre inspired a number of Żak's paintings and drawings. The Polish artist began to intensify the stylization of his figural silhouettes and faces. Żak's "Arcadia", inspired by original Italian and southern French landscapes as well as those by European art masters, was inhabited by people with a hermaphroditic beauty, undoubtedly linked to Żak's fascination with the Renaissance. Their physiognomies recall the profiles of ancient Greek art, with the nose angled straight from the forehead and distinctly outlined eyes, while the faces bear a languorous, nostalgic expression. Żak, like Modigliani, by means of sophisticated drawing and a poetic imagination with a romantic tint, created a very special "human race" found only in the figures of his pictures.