Inspiration with Antiquity in Polish Art around 1900s

Abstract

Antiquity became in Polish art the basis for formal experiments related to neoclassicism also inspired by Puvis de Chavannes. The sources can be traced to the drawings to Iliad (1897) of StanislawWyspianski, with rich styling of lines, ornament and the human form rooted in Art Nouveau, as well as synthetic mythological sculpture of Henryk Glicenstein. Inspirations with Greek sculpture since 1905 led the sculptor Elie Nadelman to “volumetric” drawing compositions which resulted in the proto-cubistic geometrization of the face. Nadelman influenced Eugene Zak’s and Jerzy Merkel’s idyllic compositions presenting pairs of lovers or young women. It revealed discordance between the timeless beauty of the southern landscape and a sense of transience, symbolized by the motifs of ruins and old buildings. The type of ideal landscape with conical mountains, wide, misty water splashes, stylized silhouettes of trees and asymmetrical construction of the image, foreshadowed Art Deco.