Chana Kowalska 1899-1942
The Bridge, 1937
oil on canvas
58.5 x 47 cm
and dated (lower right): Chana Kowalska 1937
1987-188
Photo: Bridgeman images
The strong lines, bold colours and simplified figures reflect Kowalska's naïve style of painting, disguising a more complex message in which a series of contrasting images are linked literally and...
The strong lines, bold colours and simplified figures reflect Kowalska's naïve style of painting, disguising a more complex message in which a series of contrasting images are linked literally and symbolically by the bridge. As a happy couple in the foreground celebrates their marriage, the young woman behind them, signals across the water, apparently in distress. Beyond the bridge we glimpse an idyllic pastoral scene, but a horse-drawn cart swallowed up by the narrowing perspective suggests a corresponding narrowing of opportunities.
Provenance
presented by Mosheh OvedLiterature
Walter Schwabe and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 62.2
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