The Syndrome of an Emigrant: Memory, Trauma, Longing, and Loss in the Art of Józef Czapski

Abstract

This article addresses the multilayered thematic area focused on the impact of trauma, caused by war and political oppression, on the attitudes of artists who followed combat trails and migration routes to ultimately settle far from their homeland. What I consider particularly challenging in this field of study is to find an answer to the question: why did some of the forcefully displaced artists manage to integrate with the art scene of their final destination, while others preferred to attain their position on the cultural margins of the new locality? The best exemplification of these complex issues is the biography of Józef Czapski (1896-1993), a Polish writer, essayist, art critic, and painter, who fought in the ranks of the Polish army on the fronts of World War I and World War II, and, eventually, permanently settled in France. I argue that it was the wartime and the hell of migration that caused Czapski’s inability to fully assimilate in the Parisian art world, and stimulated his aversion to avant-garde progressivism and innovative experimentation. My analyses reveal that his paintings epitomise remnants of collective and individual trauma, an overwhelming sense of loss, and a ‘residue’ of painful experiences resulting from expulsion and exile.