ALEKSANDRA JANISZEWSKA-CARDONE
The illustration of the pineapple fruit opens the collection of Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium – the transformation of insects from Suriname, the most important work in the rich oeuvre of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). According to the words she wrote, pineapple was the most important edible fruit in the Americas and that was why she gave…
Every time I pass this painting on the gallery it catches my eye. I wonder who was this black woman who posed for the Polish painter at Académie Julian in Paris. How did she get to France? Did she work as a model at the school for female artists, or was it a one-off event?…
Quite recently, a short text reminded me of the long-forgotten joy I had when I first came across the work of Jacobus Vrela. I was also reminded of this painting. So many questions arise when I look at the innocent scene of a play between woman and a child. Why is the room so empty,…
Christine de Pizan was a French writer and thinker. When she widowed at the age of 24 she was left with no income. Searching for financial support, she began to write ballads for the French court. Fame was brought to her by participation in the debate on the poem “Romance of the Rose”, which showed…
Images can store memories of long-lost people or objects. Sometimes they even revive them. I experience this feeling every time I look at the animals collected by Roelant Savere in his painting. Especially I am looking for the one hidden in the shadows behind a big bull in the foreground and shown in everlasting dispute…
The model for the Millais painting was Elizabeth Siddal. The young girl lay in a heavy, embroidered dress in a tub full of water. It ended with her pneumonia, but also a permanent place in the pantheon of fame. This is one of the most famous paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. Siddal soon became the wife…
Have you ever wondered how the stories that we tell ourselves are created? What affects the way they shape in our mind? And how does this affect our experience of the world? I would like to offer you an exercise in looking today. Something like the Rorschach test, only the material will be less abstract….
This stone, double-sided ornamented slab was made over three thousand years BC, so more than fifty centuries ago. Symbolically it marks the beginning of Egyptian ancient art, both due to the time of its creation and the theme of its reliefs. It is also one of the first visual stories of conquest, with the image…
Here are the first parents in the paradise. Just the way the God created them – chubby, disheveled, with a emotional grim on their faces. And totally unaware of their nakedness. They froze in the debate over the need of the consumption of the fruit of knowledge. Within a moment, their world will collapse, the…
Sometimes I find it hard to accept that the consequences are inextricably linked with what I’m doing. This applies both to getting rid of the old habits and the introduction of new ones. I find it hard to believe that a small change in the pattern of behavior may affect the shape of my reality….