Duck hunting

Adam Malinowski was born in Lublin in 1829. He started his artistic education in his hometown, among others, in his father's goldsmith's workshop. For further studies he went to Warsaw and Vienna. While studying, he worked in the local theatres creating decorations for performances. After returning to Poland he continued this kind of work, achieving considerable success; in 1872, he became the chief decorator of the Warsaw Government Theatres: Great, Variety and Summer Theatre in Warsaw.

Parallel to the professional work, he dealt with easel painting. His favourite genre was landscape. He painted views of his native Lublin Region, Kuyavia and Volhynia, often shown at dawn and dusk. They are characterised by linear, meticulous depiction and limited, almost monochromatic colours. Atmospheric landscapes with motifs of cottages, mills, and castle ruins against the background of picturesque nature, complemented by charming details, evoke associations with the 17th-century Dutch landscape.

Obvious inspirations with the works of the great Northern masters are visible in the painting Polowanie na kaczki [Hunting Ducks] from 1878. The painting depicts a fragment of a flat floodplain located among vast meadows, diversified with varied vegetation. Several large leaning trees with twisted trunks, growing on a sandy bank, occupy half of the foreground and dominate the composition. In their vicinity, in the centre of the representation, there are two tiny, barely visible figures – a hunter and a dog. Above the distant, irregular line of trees, in the sky lit up with rose-golden light, hovers a flying key of wild ducks. The hunter, the dog, the flying birds are motifs that suggest a specific theme in a very discreet way, typical of old Dutch painting but also of Malinowski himself. It seems, however, that it is here only a pretext for making a detailed study of nature and facing complex artistic challenges. The painter aimed at a credible reproduction on canvas of sensual impressions and the emotions they evoked: space, air, light, a cool, silent morning.

Bożena Kasperowicz