Tamed (collection of National Museum in Warsaw)

A willowy woman in a long dress stands on a stone bridge above a chasm. She reaches toward a monstrous snake-like dragon with a forked tongue. Below them is a mountainous landscape, behind them a sky filled with billowing clouds. The picture, dated to about 1931 in the catalogue of Wawrzeniecki’s monographic exhibition of 1931, was most likely painted earlier, in about 1910 as Janusz Zagrodzki has shown. This dating is also confirmed by the images of deities (?) visible on the stone bridge, which are similar to the ones the artist depicted in Fable, as well as by the color of the sky, which recalls the painting The Tale of the Princess and the Dragon. The work can be interpreted in many ways; motifs drawn from the legend of St. George, the princess, and the dragon are discernible, but the composition can also be read as the triumph of humankind over instinct, the forces of nature, or evil.

owner: National Museum in Warsaw
photo by Piotr Ligier/MNW