Sketch to ‘The Poisoned Well’ 1903

Jacek Malczewski made this sketch to ‘The Poisoned Well’ sometime around 1903, and it looks like he was working quickly to get his ideas down. I love how the figures emerge from this hazy, ochre ground! See those looping strokes, how they suggest bodies caught in movement. What do you think Malczewski was trying to capture? Maybe it was the fleeting quality of a dream, or a memory. The paint is so thin in places that it feels like he's barely touched the surface, and then elsewhere, like around the figures, there’s a real thickness. A definite sense of layering and working-over. I find that combination so suggestive. Think about someone like Ensor, with his masked figures and strange allegories, or maybe even Redon, with his Symbolist visions. Malczewski is part of that conversation, that ongoing exchange of ideas, pushing painting to be a form of embodied expression. The painting embraces ambiguity and uncertainty. It allows for multiple readings, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition.