The depiction is part of the long tradition of still lifes composed using objects from daily life, but because of the choice of objects, it escapes this painting genre and takes on a critical meaning. The painting uses the colloquial ‘imaginarium’ of a labourer’s workshop: work clothes composed of a quilted working jacket, a so-called vatnik, a protective helmet and felt rubber boots. An important semantic and compositional element that brings a dynamic to the painting is the spade — one of the most basic and at the same time stereotypical labourer’s tools. The purely painterly values of Kaczmarski’s canvas that respect the long tradition of realism— colour, light and shadows — is noteworthy. Vanitas connotations can be found here, linking the painted objects to a man who has left, leaving his things behind. The political nature of the work is hidden, among other things, in the circumstances of its creation and the social mood of the time, when the dignity of the working people was not a priority for the communist authorities.

Michał Jachuła

translated by Paulina Bożek