Marian Stroński’s painting “Night” is only seemingly a black-and-white composition, composed of irregular, geometric shapes. Look closely. Take a few steps away and close your eyes. After a moment, you’ll realize it’s a studio interior, where the titular night plays with moonlight and shadow, imbuing the shapes with new meanings. On the left, you can see the outline of a figure standing at an easel. Next to it, on the right, is a tall, slender flower in a vase, and on the wardrobe sits a dog or a cat. Or perhaps it’s just a figurine? Now come closer. Observe the color palette in the painting. Emerald greens and blue-grays emerge from the white, and you’ll see crimsons in the black. “Night” is a perfect example of Stroński’s mastery of glazing. Thinly applied, semi-transparent layers of color, often mixed with varnish, interpenetrate and shine through one another. The entire innovation of Marian Stroński’s so-called abstract work lies in its being the result of his inner reflections and the need for this kind of expression. It was born, already formed. In his non-representational works, the artist’s goal was not to depict reality in a deliberately distorted manner, but to explore the relationships of shapes and colors, their interaction. Stroński said: “Every line, every form is alive.” The painter believed that through abstract art, much more could be said about emotions, and the number of interpretations was limitless.
