In 1963, while still at university, Jan Dobkowski created one of his most intriguing and important works. Interestingly, they were neither canvases, nor installations, nor drawings, but a series of 28 linocuts, with which Dobkowski illustrated the iconic volume of Guillaume Apollinaire's poems titled "The Bestiary: or Orpheus's Procession" (French: "Bestiaire ou Cortege d 'Orphée"). The collection of poems by Apollinaire was first published in 1911 and originally featured illustrations by Raol Duffy, a French fauvist painter known for his remarkably colourful and refined painting compositions. Captivated by these illustrations, Dobkowski created a composition for each of Apollinaire's poems, just like Duffy. In this collection of short poems, Apollinaire tells the story of Orpheus using allegories of animals and their natural features. The message of Apollinaire's poetry is open for interpretation and centres on the features of human nature that the poet connects with the characteristics of the animals he describes. The poetry of Apollinaire is an example of esoteric orphism, which as an artistic trend is characterised by the capacity of universal messaging and susceptibility to interpretation, which appealed to the young and curious Jan Dobkowski.
In addition to line, the colour dichotomy of printmaking and the fact that working with printmaking techniques is primarily an intellectual process were very important to Dobkowski, who said: "White and black force us to think in a pure form, because this contrast is the basic means of expression, replacing other means." Although indirect, his later works on paper also carry echoes of this series. The mental and spiritual dimensions of Dobkowski's "Bestiary" are crucial for understanding the further experiments that the artist carried out by covering the sheets of paper with the tangle of endless line. Dobkowski also mentioned: "I drew further conclusions from my experience with linocut. You must always use all the available options provided by each technique that others do not offer. Following the publication of "Bestiary" in 1964, many drawings started to be created, using a drawing nib and are characterided by strong line density." Further theoretical deliberations initiated in "Bestiary" were visible in his improvised drawings on paper, oil and acrylic paintings on canvases, and spatial compositions, all of which adhered to his artistic ideology of "line is a trail of thinking." According to Krzysztof Lipka, the line does not only serve as a synthesis of the artist's various forms of expression, but also develops into "a means of expression, a tool, (...) an individual artistic language."