Portrait of a man

One of the most important genres defining the character of Boznańska's work was portrait painting, including both full-figure depictions and framed images, shown in shallow space. The popularity of this theme was associated with the artist's special treatment of her own studio as a private space, clearly separated from the external reality, allowing the development of images in many sessions, building a special relationship with the portrayed person.

Portret mężczyzny [The Portrait of a Man] from the collection of the National Museum in Lublin is part of the mature phase of the artist's work, after she moved to Paris (1898). It was at this time that she became more comfortable with the painting matter. The saturation of detail, the richness of the details that had defined her earlier paintings was replaced by a synthetic, sketch-like form, at the same time reflecting a masterful technique. The flow of paint, following the imagined shape, creates an unusual combination of the sensuality of the painting matter with the effect of flickering, ephemeral imagination.

The figure was shown frontally, in bust, tightly filling the frame of the painting. Boznańska obliterates the background, softens the contours, leaving the man's hand in a free outline, focusing all the attention on the blue eyes - enhancing the unobviousness of the face. The portrait emerging through the painterly curtains becomes expressive and absent, focused and melancholic, passing the viewer's gaze. The representation shows a situation of tension, a gaze outside the frame of the painting, which at the same time expresses the alertness, in the face of being observed, of the man who submits to the painter's observation.

Intimism became an essential feature of her portrait painting, revealing the power of concentration on the face and a deep mystery, showing the truth and mystery of the portrayed person. At the beginning of 1900, Boznańska had a profound emotional experience - a broken engagement with the painter and architect Józef Czajkowski. The features of the portrayed man resemble the figure of Czajkowski. Strong emotional relations inscribed in the artist's biography in her portrait studies took the form of intimate studies, but always based on secretiveness and restraint - understatement as the essential stylistic figure of Olga Boznańska's painting.

Marcin Lachowski