Włodzimierz Tetmajer (1862 Harklowa - 1923 Kraków), Motif from Bronowice, 1903

oil, canvas, 54.5 × 70.5 cm
signed p. d.: WTetmajer
on the reverse, on the bottom bar of the loom, exhibition sticker with handwritten name, address and title of the work
Attached to the work is an opinion by Adam Konopacki

Tetmajer's favorite models, captured in numerous paintings, were members of
of his immediate family, including his six children. The work offered at auction depicts
the two younger of the two, Maria Magdalena (1899-1973) and Jan Kazimierz (1901-
1920). The siblings are shown against a backdrop of a country homestead bathed in spring sunshine
homestead.
The painting belongs to a series of works whose subject is the village of Bronowice, near Krakow,
its daily life, inhabitants and landscape. The artist observed with great attention and
recorded on canvas the complexity and richness of rural reality. He illustrated not only
the beauty of rituals, carefree play, colorful costumes, but also the hardship of work in the countryside,
harsh living conditions. When painting the picture entitled "Motif from Bronowice," Tetmajer used
expressive means characteristic of his style, such as impasto application of
paints, deformation, narrow framing, operating with wide patches of color. The work reflects
also the importance the artist placed on the effects of light, which builds up much of the
largely the atmosphere of the representation, a predilection for its strong contrasts.
"Vibrant, saturated, variegated paints co-create a strong impression of the multicolor of a
of a sunny spring day. The color scheme dominated by a wide range of shades of
brown, olive green, from which brightly stand out intense in value children's
clothes, faces. The artist has achieved with saturated colors, strong contrasts of
chiaroscuro strongly perceptible effect of a sunny day - the day of awakening of nature/
life, the image of which, as well as the image of small children, butterflies, become a symbolic
message."
"The positioning of the pair of children on the right side of the painting gives them a special "weight of
composition" - it undoubtedly focuses attention - they are the main content of the work. Other
parts of the painting, with diagonal lines of the fence, wagon, huts, branches running in a "zigzag" pattern
direct the eye into the distance of the country house and complete the story of the painting."
- excerpts from an opinion piece by Adam Konopacki