The painting evokes Przybylski’s fascination with the work of two painters from two distant times: Jacek Malczewski and Francisco Goya. Przybylski had been making the series of illustrations and paintings under the shared title Vicious Circle, referring to the work of the Young Poland artist, since the mid-1970s. He became interested in Goya’s art back in the 1960s, when his language of expressive figuration was taking shape. Letters to other artists, such as van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso, date from the 1970s. Vicious Circle 15 — Letter to Goya is Przybylski’s self-portrait in which he takes on the appearance of the Spanish artist. The central part of the painting shows an image inspired by Goya’s self-portrait from the Caprices series. The artist, wearing a top hat, is bound with a rope. The two men dressed in black escorting him further restrict the freedom of the now incapacitated figure. The deformed and exaggerated facial expressions, gestures and costumes give the whole scene a grotesque feel. In this stilted dialogue with the art of his predecessors, Przybylski expresses what interests him the most: the entanglement of the individual in existential situations, the roles and masks people assume or have imposed on them by others.

Michał Jachuła

translated by Paulina Bożek