Carnival

Jan Wydra was born in 1902 in Ciecierzyn near Lublin. He belonged to the St. Luke Brotherhood group established in 1923 at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, its members being Tadeusz Pruszkowski's students. The Brotherhood worked on the model of a medieval artists' guild. Pruszkowski considered the mastery of craftsmanship to be its basis. When avant-garde movements were developing in Europe, the Brotherhood postulated a return to figurative art, realism based on the heritage of the Italian Renaissance art and the Dutch and Spanish Baroque. The artists took part in open-air workshops in Kazimierz Dolny. Edward Hartwig, an outstanding photographer, said the following about the artistic meetings: "In the streets, there are easels scattered almost every step of the way, at each of them an eccentric figure with a palette in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. On the steps and folding stools students with sketchbooks. I used to see them at Berens', where they came for meals, often drunk, and I listened with envy to the sounds of their carefree conversations, enchanted by their white washed-out linen trousers, colourful scarves around their necks and crumpled hats protecting their heads from the sun".

The genre scene with a man and a woman is erotically oriented, showing physical closeness between two people. The man, seated on the ground, has his back turned to the viewer, facing the woman, who is also seated, sticking out her exposed leg right next to her removed shoes and extending her hand towards the bottles.

Klara Sadkowska