Dziecko
Child
- Year
- 1981
- Material
- canvas
- Dimensions
- 40 × 48 cm
- Location
- private collection
- Related works
-
- Dziecko, 1982 Open the catalogue entry → The bronze of the year after, where the same opening parts in the disc and holds the child.
- U progu życia, 1970 Open the catalogue entry → The mahogany of 1970 in which that opening appears for the first time, in a park.
The work
A dark, reddish mass fills the whole canvas and opens in the middle into an almond-shaped opening — the shape of a half-closed eye. Inside the opening there is a meadow, a row of distant trees, a white cloth spread on the ground, and on the cloth a naked child seated, knees drawn up and a hand at its mouth. From above, outside the opening, an enormous finger comes down and grazes its edge.
It dates from 1981, and the bronze of the following year that bears the same title is the same invention: the disc opens in the same way and inside it sits the curled-up child. The device — a volume that opens and holds a figure — Antonina works at long before and long after, and its oldest form is the mahogany set down in a park at Płock in 1970. Here, for once, the hand can be seen arriving first on the canvas.