Objects

Teodor Bok was fond of painting still lifes. He created them in the form of coffered, juxtaposed drawing panels, in which he placed precisely reproduced objects, plants, buildings, balls, gates, machines or drills. He organised and arranged them in horizontal strip compositions.

Is there any mystery hidden in these objects apart from their harmonious configuration? They were indeed not random, purely aesthetic solutions. Do the sphere and the pyramid tell us about human knowledge? Maybe this is why the first letters of the alphabet are there. But why is there a javelin stuck into the sphere, a piece of wood? Do the glued-in dried leaves symbolise nature? Why is the parish chronicle symbolised by seven stones (the seven horsemen of the Apocalypse)? Why does a pyramid appear again in the next coffer, this time placed in a gate with a portico? Two ancient civilisations, Egypt and Greece, are combined... Why does the human silhouette have a "torso" ripped out of Marlboro LIGHT cigarettes (the inscription is visible upside down)? And why on earth does the author not only reproduce the electric drill in detail (what does it have to do with religion, the cosmos and ancient civilisation?), but also gives it an extraordinarily detailed description or name of each part: above the drill - WIERTŁO. By the handle - RĄCZKA. At the flask with a button – PRZYCISK, above it - another inscription: PRZYCISK No. 2. At the bottom – the long horizontal arrow with the inscription KABEL [CABLE] above it.

One could go on trying to analyse this picture. One could use various scientific methods and sources, searching for associations. However, it might be better to feel the humour emanating from the work, to immerse oneself in the grotesque of everyday life to follow the artist's associations.

Renata Piątkowska