Difficulties and horrors of life shown in cells of an underground grotto. Gouache by W. Kurelek, ca. 1953-1954.

Thirteen interconnected scenes, here identified by numbers 1-13 (not numbered on the painting). Top left, four people arguing with each other in the open air (1). They are linked by a chain to the first of several cells acting as underground prisons in a stone dwelling. In the cell nearest the outside (2), two people are trying to force shut the lid of a coffin containing a manacled person who is resisting. In the cell below them (3), a farmer is trying to control a recalcitrant horse dragging a hay stack on a sledge. Above are three interconnected cells: a man digging flaming clods from a field (4), a man studying in a library (5), and a man sawing a tree trunk (6). Top right, a man carrying a pot of paint tiptoes away from a signboard that he has written (7), and below, a big turkey watching its offspring sleeping in a cot in a squalid room (8). Top right, a fractious family at table: a snake is coming out of the woman's mouth (9). Centre right, a manacled person performing obeisance to a draped skeleton (10). Along the bottom (left to right): a man scarifying his arms with a razor blade (11); a man imprisoned in a pit and a man hanged from a tree in the same pit (12). In the centre, a manacled man, seated, is reflected in a succession of mirrors (13)