Jacek Łydżba: Essays
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Solitaire – a lonely tree
Solitaire – a lonely tree and a painting theme, and a multitude of interpretations and possibilities to ‘read’ the painting. It may be the tree of life, the tree of good and bad news. It all depends on the manner in which it is presented – as the symbol of rebirth, or sin and decay.
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Mothers
It’s not easy to pray and, therefore, people have those prayer wheels, rosaries and carpets that facilitate the praying act in a physical, mechanical way, without engaging the mind and the heart too much. In our culture we are, however, used to praying to someone, to have an illusion of contact with the Person that is ‘listening’ and reacting in some way.
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A painter from the foothills of the Jasna Góra Monastery
Let me take you for a walk around Częstochowa. My itinerary includes a stroll down the streets of 7 Kamienic, Św. Barbary and Wieluńska. We are in the vicinity of the Jasna Góra Monastery, in the very heart of the pilgrimage centre. The outline of the monastery, with its soaring steeple, towers over the surrounding area, the parks and the little alleys full of shops and stalls with devotional articles.
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A grey wolf, some pigeons, and a jet plane
Is painting still capable of telling any narrative any more? Past the silent monochrome pictures, isn’t a story told by a painting an anachronism? I guess, it is. But on the other hand, even a lonely light-blue, or an explosive red, do happen to be talkative.
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The sentimental side of the world of imagination
When someone stands in front of a mirror, they usually concentrate on their own reflection, while the rest - the background - escapes their attention. We see a lonely figure extracted from the blurred reality behind its back.
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Everyone has their "little town"
The lying figure of a beautiful woman is another standard of European art, exploited by the greatest masters from Titian to Manet, later to become a visual cliché. Łydżba is again attracted to a banal theme from the popular imagination of a small town.
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Aeroplane, angel, wolf, bicycle
In the twentieth century every association had the weight of a symbol, or maybe its lack of weight; we lived surrounded by rank-and-file associations which we only now, posthumously, award medals and include in a roll of honour.
