Study of a classical sculpture

Jacek Malczewski painted this Study of a Classical Sculpture in 1901 at a period when he balanced rigorous academic discipline against the mythological and national-romantic programmes that dominated his major canvases. Such studies from classical casts formed the backbone of Polish academic training at the Kraków School of Fine Arts, where Malczewski taught. Working from a sculptural model demanded the same careful observational discipline as life drawing, and Malczewski returned to this practice throughout his teaching career. The work, now at the National Museum in Warsaw, demonstrates that even in his symbolist period he never abandoned the patient study of form through direct observation.

Working from a sculptural cast, Malczewski attends closely to the fall of light across carved surfaces, using carefully controlled tonal gradients to suggest three-dimensionality. Line and wash work together to define form with the precision expected of academic study.