Obraz jako metafora. Hermeneutyczne ujęcie obrazu „Chrystus i Samarytanka” Jacka Malczewskiego (1912)
An Image as a Metaphor. A Hermeneutic Reading of Jacek Malczewski’s Painting “Christ and the Samaritan Woman” (1912)

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the text is to assess the possibility of using the achievements of art-historical hermeneutics in the interpretation of Jacek Malczewski’s painting Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1912). The painting is the last in a series of four works devoted to the story from the Gospel of St. John, which Malczewski executed between 1909 and 1912. In all the versions, Malczewski gave Christ his own features, while the Samaritan woman had the face of Maria Bal, his mistress. Malczewski’s contemporaries generally misunderstood these paintings. Over time, attempts were made to interpret them in various ways. The view that has recently become widespread is that they were a form of an “artist’s confession” and should be read according to a biographical key. However, this explanation ignores the visual structure of the work, which is the focus of hermeneutics. The analysis of this structure undertaken in the current essay has led to the conclusion that Malczewski’s painting is an innovative visualisation of the biblical metaphor used by Christ in his conversation with the Samaritan woman, comparing himself to a vessel of water.

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