Turkeys

The painting, in sketchy form, shows disparate elements: detailed, richly feathered and busy turkeys in the clear foreground and two figures barely outlined in the centre of the composition. They can be recognised as the image of a female angel and the kneeling, hunched figure of a man. The scene is set in the yard, against the background of a wooden manor house. Jacek Malczewski's painting is a study for themes developed at various points in his artistic career. The native scenery, brought out through realistic observation of detail, was combined in the painter's work with vision, a symbolic message, and a metaphysical experience. The painting Indyki [Turkeys], maintained in subdued, brownish colours, may be treated as a sketch preceding the artist's precise, detail-oriented workshop. The painterly outline reveals at the same time the fundamental message of Malczewski's oeuvre, which combines an earthly dimension saturated with detail and strongly modelled figures with a fantastic dimension, presenting unearthly figures and mythological motifs expressed in intense colour. Turkeys, due to their special effect of being unfinished, reveal Malczewski's painting technique – gradual saturation of the painting with details, modelling of forms, bringing out distinct shapes of figures, and detailing the depicted scenes. They also make it possible to discern the basic motifs of his work – a sentimental journey into the past, reminiscence of the manor house atmosphere of his childhood, bringing out the bustle and noise of rural scenery. At the same time, they reveal a spiritual dimension in the female figure – ambiguous, referring to various types of the artist's painting – an angel, Chimera, and Thanatos. It is in its sketchy form that the painting from the National Museum in Lublin acquires symbolic significance as a sudden flash of ambiguous content – combining the element of vitality and biological nature with a premonition of mortality, finality. These two extreme moments are expressed by art, as the whole oeuvre of Jacek Malczewski was to testify, which demands total devotion and sacrifice. The turkeys condense and amplify this message, showing a barely sketched figure of the artist, shown on the border between temporality and eternity.

Marcin Lachowski