Pietà

Religious themes were taken up many times by Władysław Roguski (1890-1940). The graphic work belongs to the popular representation of the Mother of God with Christ, which is a pieta. Depicted in the folk convention, the Mother of God is gazing in quiet contemplation at the inert body of Christ, taken down from the cross and held on her knees. Mary is dressed in simple, undistinguished clothes, apart from red beads on a white veil, a reference to folk culture. The body of Jesus, covered only by a perisonium, bears visible traces of the Passion in the form of wounds inflicted with nails and a spear, beyond which it remains clean and undefiled. From the pierced side, blood flows in three streams into a golden chalice placed near Mary's foot. The composition is enriched by flowers surrounding the pieta, blooming, lush roses. The slight chiaroscuro modelling gives the impression of flatness, also the background filled with flowers, as in the Podhale painting on glass, lacks the impression of depth.

Władysław Roguski began his artistic education at the Warsaw Drawing School under Jan Kauzik and Miłosz Kotarbiński, and later studied at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts, between 1912 and 1914 under Józef Pankiewicz and Józef Mehoffer.

He belonged to the Polish Formists, an artistic movement active between 1917 and 1922 which believed that the form was more important than the content of the work. Since 1923 he was a member of the Association of Polish Artists Rhythm. A frequent motif in his work was the Madonna and Child, executed in a style taken from folk painting on glass.

Klara Sadkowska