color woodcut, paper, 27 x 20 cm
author's signature p.d.
The artist's composition depicts one of the most interesting Krakow customs, namely the Lajkonik (the so-called "zwierzyniec horse") parade, which to this day, every year, eight days after the feast of Corpus Christi, sets off from the courtyard of the Norbertine Sisters' convent in the Zwierzyniec district to the Main Square in Krakow. The Lajkonik is wearing a Tartar outfit, with a high pointed cap on his head and a mace in his hand. Shot in the background are Krakow's most characteristic buildings - the Barbican, the Florian Gate and the towers of St. Mary's Church.
The work comes from the graphic portfolio "Legends of Cracow," in which Stanislaw Raczynski depicted, in color woodcut technique, the best-known traditions and customs of Cracow.
StanislawRaczynski (1903 - 1982) painter, graphic artist, stage designer. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in 1926. He continued his studies at universities in Paris and Italy. His artistic output was mainly woodcuts, but he was also involved in printmaking, advertising art and illustration. Most often he took up figural and architectural subjects (numerous woodcuts depicting St. Mary's Church in Cracow), which he subjected to decorative stylization. In 1927-28 he worked as a stage designer at the Popular Theater in Krakow, and for the next two years in the same capacity at the Grand Theater in Poznan. In 1930 he went to Paris on a scholarship from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment. Bibliography: Index of visual artists graduates and pedagogues of art colleges and members of ZPAP active in 1939-1992, Lexicon Committee of Visual Artists, Gdańsk-Kraków-Łodź-Poznań-Toruń-Warszawa-Wrocław, 1994.
