sign. p.g.: czapla | '3 | '06
Sign. on back p.g.: Marian Czapla 2003 | ACRYL - 200 x 140 cm | >TAKE OF THE CROSS< from the series | "ECCE HOMO".
Image exhibited:
- Heron's Passion, Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, IV 2009;
- Synagogue, Szydłów, VI 2009;
- Elevator Gallery of Contemporary Art, Kielce Cultural Center, Kielce V 2010.
Image described and reproduced:
- Marian Czapla. Painting, album from the series "Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw presents", text by Iwona Rajkowska, Marian Rumin, Wojciech Skrodzki, ASP Warsaw 2009, pp. 58-59, color ill;
- Marian Czapla - painting, Waclaw Stawecki - sculpture (exhibition catalog), Gminne Centrum Kultury, Szydłów, 28 VI - 18 VIII 2009, color ill., pp. nlb;
- Marian Czapla - painting, Winda Gallery of Contemporary Art, Kielce Cultural Center, Kielce 2010, p. 39, color ill.
For Czapla, the cross was "first of all a sign of love. Man is inscribed in the form of the cross, but also the cross is inscribed in the life of man, so the cross and man identify each other. It is a sign, it is a symbol, it is a destiny and finally the cross is a necessity. In my development of understanding of art, I came to understand Malevich, and he tangibly painted the cross as a sign of time and life. The cross is a sign and an ideal form. I, when painting it, go once to the biological dimension of it, and once to the mystical. The cross, in the end, is a sign of our dignity." For Czapla, there seems to be only one way to understand life - through the prism of the cross. For him, unlike Malevich, the cross is not just a combination of vertical and horizontal, it is hard, heavy, rough, full of rifts but also cracks, it is a challenge that transforms the tree of shame into a tree of life.
Kamila Pytkowska, Marian Czapla (1946-2016), Kielce 2020, p. 125.
Marian Czapla (Gacki, Kielce, Poland, July 28, 1946 - Warsaw, January 12, 2016) studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1966 to 1972, earning his diploma in the studio of Professor Stefan Gierowski. In 1972 he began teaching at his alma mater. Since 1990 he was a professor, and ran his own painting studio. In 1974-1979 he was a member of the group "Symplex S4", which was formed by a group of young graduates of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, interested in the possibility of continuing the tradition of Polish colorism on the one hand, the Unism of Władysław Strzemiński on the other. Initially, he created abstract compositions built from colorful, sweeping streaks and spots. From the late 1970s, figuration became predominant in his paintings. A prominent theme in Czapla's work was religious themes and references. These interests remained current in his art in the 1980s, when he combined them with current themes (a series dedicated to the miners of "Wujka"). In the works of the 1990s (the series "Fall", "Ecce Homo" and others), the artist painted monumental figures with strong tectonics, further emphasized by strong colors and contours, framed by dynamic movements and twists of the body. Usually placed on flat backgrounds of uniform color, in a conventional space, they seem to struggle with the limiting frame of the painting. In 2002, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Marian Czapla's creative work, the National Museum in Kielce prepared an exhibition of his works, accompanied by a scholarly catalog.
