Study of a countrywoman

Jacek Malczewski's work is one of the most original phenomena in Polish art. We was active for over a half-century during which his paintings transformed, although the artist remained faithful to the traditional, realistic representation language. The content of his paintings invariably concerned two themes: the idea of national liberation and the personal sphere, enclosed in a triad of topics: Poland-art-death. The figure of a woman can be considered the binding motif in Malczewski's art. Invariably the scenery of his compositions was the native landscape, while the woman was the fundamental iconographic element in most of them. She played various roles, having countless incarnations and faces. Thanks to the extraordinary imagination of the painter, her figure underwent a fantastic transformation: from the conventional image in the early portraits of well-behaved ladies and stable matrons, country girls and fairies, through the image of the tragic heroine of Słowacki's poems, a dangerous femme fatale, a phenomenal muse, a lover, the personification of the Homeland, to a fantastic and bizarre symbolic creature. The Muses, Chimeras, Harpies, Pythias, Parks, Thanatos, i.e., strong women with statuesque shapes modelled on Greek statues or Michelangelo's sculptures, reveal the mysterious powers that guide the fate of every man and nation.

Early in his career after studying in Krakow with Matejko and in Paris, like most artists of the time Malczewski became interested in folklore. He expressed this in rural genre scenes and portraits. The study of Studium chłopki [Peasant Woman] is a depiction of a young peasant woman. The cursory way of painting, the unfinished background, especially on the right, indicates the work's nature. It can be regarded as a preliminary sketch, or a painting started but unfinished for some reason. The figure standing sideways has been worked out more carefully. The girl wears a colourful outfit: a vast white skirt, a red floral vest and a headscarf. The light of the spring sun is falling directly on her. The painter has perfectly captured the specificity of this person. He depicted her in the characteristic pose of a village housewife as confident but distrustful, with her hands resting on her hips. She is a handsome woman, full of vitality. She seems to embody Malczewski's artistic ideal of femininity from his early works.

Bożena Kasperowicz