The painting depicts an elderly man confessing beside a wooden confessional, inside which sits a carved wooden figure of Jesus. The scene takes place outdoors, in the middle of a field, on a sunny day. The colour palette is bright and natural, dominated by greens, yellows, browns and blues.

The confessing man and the confessional with the figure of Jesus are placed in the foreground, at the centre of the composition. The man is on the left, the confessional on the right. He is turned with his right side towards the viewer, kneeling on both knees, slightly leaning forward. He kneels on a brown jacket spread out on the grass. Only the right profile of his face is visible. His hands are resting under his head, pressed against the confessional. He has short black hair, balding at the crown. His complexion is yellowish with flushed cheeks. His nose is red. His forehead is lined with wrinkles. His eyebrows are black, eyes dark and looking downward. His nose is straight, with wrinkles around it. His mouth is hidden by dark facial hair and a greying beard.

The man is dressed in a blue, worn-out shirt-like jacket, patched at the elbows with darker blue fabric. A fragment of a white shirt is visible underneath. He wears dark brown trousers. His feet are bare and dirty.

The wooden confessional on the right resembles a wayside shrine. It has a simple construction: a seat surrounded by beams with a triangular roof. The front wall reaches only halfway up, leaving the upper part open, through which we see the wooden figure of Jesus. The confessional is worn. Its roof is only partially intact, made of a single board on the right side.

The figure of Jesus sits facing the viewer, with his head resting on the left wall, turned toward the man. He has long straight hair with a black band resembling a crown of thorns. His face is elongated, marked by numerous wounds, and carved from wood. The features reflect the texture of the sculpture. His eyebrows and nose are straight, eyes dark and focused on the penitent. The figure has light facial hair. His right hand rests against his cheek. His torso is bare. Between the boards near the bottom, part of his legs can be seen.

The scene unfolds in the middle of a grassy field, dotted with wildflowers and butterflies. In the distance are fields, individual trees, and bushes. The sky is clear and bright.

Confession is Hofman’s first painting on a folk-religious theme, which would later become a central focus in his work. A student of Jacek Malczewski, Hofman uses symbolic and allegorical language while maintaining a realistic representation. The painting shows a peasant kneeling before a weathered shrine serving as a confessional, where a carved figure of the Sorrowful Christ takes the role of confessor. This suggests a vision born of internal religious experience. The work is a metaphor for folk piety and the identification of the sacred with its physical image.

Audio description: Emilia Szymańska
Consultation: Adrian Wyka
Content consultation: Irena Buchenfeld