Polish Art Research Articles

The Kyiv artistic life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Polish discourse

The article focuses on the problem of the local isolation of art at the turn of the 19th-20th century and the role of Ukrainian-Polish creative contacts in establishing Ukrainian artistic discourse. The works of K. Pryzhikhovskyi, A. Kendzerskyi, P. Vasylchenko, K. Ivanytska, artists who are half-forgotten today, were discerned by the importance of experience exchange and the need to find new imagery. The aforementioned artists performed together with I. Rashevskyi, M. Pymonenko, and Ya. Stanislavskyi. The connection of the latter with Ukraine is studied in particular through his pedagogical activities. Also, the characteristic features of Polish plastic arts in Poland and outside the country (Kyiv, Odesa) are traced, as well as exhibitions and events that are crucial for our understanding of the ties between Poland and Ukraine. It is proved that because of the emergence of new artistic societies, museums, and the growing role of art schools, Kyiv has become the professional platform where new generations of Polish artists have asserted themselves. The article also traces the impact of Ukrainian and Polish culture on the emergence of new phenomena in European art of the late 19th — early 20th century.

All the Missiles Are One Missile Revisited: Dazzle in the Work of Zofia Kulik

This essay revisits one of Polish artist Zofia Kulik’s most important ‘photocarpets’, produced in a moment of hope, retrospection yet continuing war in 1993; seen by an international public in 1997. Visually, its composition is dominated by late Soviet sculptures symbolising Mother Russia and military aggression, yet the composition, ‘kilim-like’, with an additional reference to Polish Catholicism, involves bilateral and rotational symmetries which undermine significations of power and might with various other symbols: bodies, naked or draped, and Polish TV screenshots from both the military and entertainment worlds. ‘Dazzle’, the camouflage-related military term is also related to tears and (repressed) mourning. The female artist’s attitude to gender is crucial. The piece is both a ‘revisualisation’ and ‘rewriting’, relating both to the author’s previous texts on the artist from 1999 and 2001, and Kulik’s own rediscovery of her Ukrainian heritage, which reframes her own vision and understanding of the piece in 2022.

European Exhibition Poster of the 1890s in the Context of the Development of Art Nouveau

The purpose of the study is to highlight the specific features of the European poster of the 1890s. of the time of its formation on the example of the line of exhibition posters (art posters) of the leading directions of the Art Nouveau style. Methods of research. During the writing of the study, a historical and cultural approach was applied and a systematic approach was used for art-historical, stylistic, and comparative artistic analysis. The scientific novelty consists in conducting an overview art analysis of the exhibition posters of the leading European countries (Great Britain, Germany, Austria and Poland) in comparison with the generalized regularities of the French posters of the period of the 1890s. It was determined that the posters for author’s, personal and group art exhibitions have unique features, and it was outlined all distinctive features of this type of artistic production. The work of the «Glasgow Four» (C. R. Mackintosh, J. G. McNair, the Macdonald sisters) in the field of linear direction posters and the works of other authors were considered. Features of linear organization and individual floreal elements in the posters of German-Austrian Secession artists (F. von Stuck, L. von Hoffmann, P. Behrens, G. Klimt, K. Moser, J. Olbrich and others) were identified on the occasion of various level exhibitions in Munich, Berlin, Vienna in the 1890s. The parameters of the formation of the national and romantic trend in the exhibition poster of Polish artists F. Wygzywalski, Y. Mehoffer, J. Bukowski, and T. Aksentowicz were determined. Visualization techniques were analyzed, taking into account the specifics of the poster and general stylistic trends in the art of those years. Considerable attention was paid to highlighting the regional features of poster design in the specified countries, as well as the features of the authors’ individual style within these regional models. Conclusions. In the general cultural and historical context of the time, the exhibition poster was an important component of the formation of national trends in the artistic style of the time, primarily floreal, linear, national-romantic. Reflecting the stylistic guidelines of the time, the exhibition poster, aimed at a wide audience, contributed to the formation of a holistic artistic vision as a manifestation of the cultural and artistic guidelines of the specified period.

ALOJZY OBORNY (1933–2022) IN HIS WIFE’S POST MORTEM

Alojzy Oborny (1933–2022) was an art historian (MA 1955), assistant at the Pszczyna Castle Museum (1955– 1958), Head of the Raciborz Museum (1958–1961), a longstanding director of the Świętokrzyskie Museum, as of 1975 Director of the National Museum in Kielce (1961–1987, 1990– 2002), Deputy Director for Research at the National Museum in Krakow (1987–1990). A co-organizer and honorary member of the Kielce Branch of the Polish Art Historian Association, he was a long-standing member of the Council for Museums at the Ministry of Culture, as well as the president and a member of museum councils. He co-founded the Rotary Club in Kielce of which he was a member. As an art disseminator, he cooperated with Kielce dailies and cultural periodicals, as well as with the Kielce Radio. It was thanks to his efforts that the Former Palace of Cracow Bishops in Kielce was allocated to the Świętokrzyskie Museum (1971) which he subsequently raised to the dignity of the National Museum (1975). An active organizer of museum life, from the 1970s he initiated and co-organized an international cultural exchange, locating the Kielce museum collection and the offer of the Kielce Museum within the realm of Europeans culture. An expert in Polish painting, he created the Gallery of Polish Painting of the National Museum in Kielce. Oborny authored and co-authored museum exhibitions as well as several dozen publications and books on art, particularly Polish painting.

THE ARTISTIC ACTIONS PROTECTING PUBLIC SPACES

The article addresses the issue of participatory art (the so-called political, engaged art), which in its assumptions deals with the subject of marginalized social groups. Such art aims at solving given problems by the diagnosis of a cultural, social and economic situation, by animation actions, media coverage and negotiations between the parties to the conflict. The article specifies the artistic actions which allowed to protect public spaces against the pressure exerted by investors and obliged local governments to conduct restoration work and properly organise places for relaxation and integration of local communities. There is also focus on the experience of Polish artists such as Iza Rutkowska, Julita Wójcik and Joanna Rajkowska as well as the description of the Modraszek Collective action and the selected participatory actions of the project entitled Wrocław – Entrance from the Backyard.

Memory, the City, and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe: The Ghosts of Others

Memory, the City, and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe: The Ghosts of Others

THE ESSAY GENRE IN THE CREATIVITY OF JERZY STEMPOWSKI

The article describes the specifics of the essay genre as such his active development, his belonging to a certain genre and the main features of this genre. It is indicated that it contains the author’s thoughts on a certain problems, allows synthesis in the content of artistic, journalistic, philosophical and scientific principles. It is noted that the essay is characterized by polemics. The works of researchers regarding the nature of the genre are given in the article. it is noted that today there are many interpretations of this term. The features of this genre have been clarified in the work of the famous Polish essayist and literary critic Jerzy Stempowski. In Polish essay writing, the preference belonged to emigre writers, who quite often used this genre in their works. Emigration becomes a special place for creativity, where the writer is free from all cultural and social norms of his society. The main social and personal reasons for the appearance and popularity of the essay genre in the works of the Polish artist are determined, in particular, attention is paid to his long-term cooperation with the magazine “Kultura”. The universality of the theme of the collection “Selected Essays”, which includes 22 works, is indicated. The subjectivity inherent in a genre essay is the main aspect of E.Stempovsky’s essay writing. The position of the peasantry, ancient philosophy, current politics, international relations, the nuances of literary studies, the search for the essence and purpose of art, the moral attitude in times of indignity — all these are the leading themes of the essayist’s works. Jerzy Stempowski’s work, in which he described Ukraine and Ukrainian history in an essay, presented Ukrainian culture to the Polish reader.

Chołpa w paryji. O wiejskich dziwakach w polskim kinie i nie tylko (bardzo) subiektywnie

Every village has its ‘misfits’ – weirdos living at the outskirts of the community, who are only more or less tolerated by the rest of the residents. The reasons for their isolation are manifold – it can be illness, disability, but also life experiences such as war, unrequited love and political persecution. Many of them found solace and expressed themselves through art, which was often referred to as naive and primitive, as well as Art Brut. This was how they made their living, or searched for the meaning of life. In the process, they also became custodians and chroniclers of village life – its history, customs, problems and beliefs, which formed a peculiar syncretism of past and present. This mixture of the primitive and the modern delighted Ludwig Zimmerer, a German press correspondent turned collector of Polish folk and independent art. This fascination was also shared by filmmakers, including Andrzej Wajda. Some of them, like Wiesław Dymny, Henryk Kluba, Witold Leszczyński, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Wojciech Smarzowski, and Jan Jakub Kolski, tried to picture this world of ‘village weirdos’ in their films, sometimes resorting to putting them in the role of their protagonists. This was the case in Kolski’s Jańcio Wodnik [Johnnie Waterman], Słońce wschodzi raz na dzień [The Sun Rises Once a Day] by Kluba and Dymny, as well as Leszczyński’s Konopielka Królikiewcz’s Tańczący jastrząb [The Dancing Hawk] and Smarzowski’s Wesele [The Wedding]. Each of these films showcases the village outsider or a character who becomes an outsider in the course of its plot. At the same time, the audience ventures into the seemingly exotic world of the Polish countryside and learns about its history from a hitherto unknown perspective.

Classics of Polish Design. Polish avant-garde Bauhaus style furniture from the interwar period

Classics of Polish Design. Polish avant-garde Bauhaus style furniture from the interwar period presents a review of the best Polish furniture designs from the 1920s and 1930s. In spite of the inspirations with historicism popular in the interwar period and the references to folk culture (e.g., the "Ład" Artists' Cooperative), Polish designers also drew inspiration from the works of the following artists: Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe and Mart Stam, who designed avant-garde furniture made of metal pipes. The paper presents little known works of Polish artists from the groups "Praesens", "Atelier wnętrz i architektury" (The Atelier of Interiors and Architecture), "Studium wnętrz i sprzętu" (Studio of Interiors and Equipment), as well as furniture designs referring to the Bauhaus style for private and public interiors (including designs for transatlantics or the President's Castle in Wisła), among others, manufactured by the Thonet-Mundus company. The paper continues the series devoted to the "Classics of Polish Design", presenting the results of research on Polish furniture, carried out within the framework of dissertations in the Department of Wood Technology in the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW).

Visite en Pologne, au Liberatorium

Polish artist Radosław Nowakowski operates a small press - Liberatorium - and creates series of books focusing on non-writing and non-descriptions.

Big Politics Around Cyprus. The Ottoman Empire and Venice in the Struggle for the Island (1570–1574)

The purpose of the article is to provide an idea of the role that Cyprus played in the rivalry between the Ottoman Empire at the height of its development in the sixteenth century, and the Christian forces in the Mediterranean basin, in particular, the Republic of Venice. The Battle of Lepanto is one stage in this rivalry, which culminated in major changes in the strategic and economic balance in the eastern Mediterranean. The article refers to the causes of this rivalry, the war for Cyprus and the Battle of Lepanto, and also points to the important theme of the battle itself in Polish art, also in a metaphorical context. The article concludes by pointing out the consequences of the fall of Cyprus and its placement as a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Spatial Cities in the East and South. Gyula Kosice’s Artistic Dialogue with Hungarian and Slovak Artists

The article aims to reveal similarities between the artistic approaches of the Czechoslovakian-born Argentine artist Gyula Kosice and the Slovak art scene. Referencing Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski’s concept of “horizontal art history”, the article focuses on the artistic dialogue between kinetic and op art artists developed during the Cold War period in the countries of Central Europe and Latin America. The goal of the article is twofold. Firstly, it will expose the specificity of artistic practices and strategies developed in non-Western art scenes. It also aims to reveal certain proximities among artists, especially those engaged in kinetic and geometrical art. Adopting a transnational and transmodern approach, the text will focus on Gyula Kosice’s contact with the Slovak artist Alex Mlynárčik, established through the French art critic Michel Ragon. It will also highlight similarities between Kosice’s hydrospatial cities, Mlynárčik’s architectural proposals realised with the VAL group in the 1970s, and the concept of prospective architecture coined by Michel Ragon.

Czy to już koniec krytyki? Wstęp do metakrytyki Mieczysława Porębskiego

The article discusses the key text of Mieczysław Porębski(1921-2012), an outstanding Polish art historian and art critic, which is vital for understanding his proposed idea of ​​creating a metacritical language that would allow description of the contemporary art world − Introduction to Metacriticism (first edition around 1966, second 1983). All Porębski's publications on this subject are mentioned in the article to obtain a full picture of this concept in the researcher's writings. The importance of creating it for critical-artistic methods is emphasized. The sources of inspiration for the idea of ​​metacriticism (including bibliographic ones) and the implementation of its assumptions in the text itself are shown, taking into account the approximate mid-twentieth century historical context of methodologies developed on the basis of structuralist reflection, especially the influence of information theory and game theory. The ways in which Porębskicame to formulate the assumptions of metacriticism are presented, also through analysis of the language itself. The idea of ​​metacriticism is placed in the wider context of the researcher's scientific work too, linking it with his proposal to divide the history of art criticism into the so-called criticism of poets and criticism of experts, as well as the idea of ​​the iconosphere postulated by him, which proves to be a pioneering one for contemporary research on visual culture. Finally, the paper suggests that the idea of ​​metacriticism can be the beginning of the present-day style of writing about art.

«FROM THE NEED OF THE HEART»: WORKS OF POLISH ARTISTS IN SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

The article collects the systematizes and analyzes of the works of Polish artists in support of Ukraine, and also an artistic interpretation of their works in the context of modern art of resistance. Methodology of research is based on visual analysis of works, analytical and art history methods of research, as well as a systematic approach. The scientific novelty is that, the research is the first attempt of analytical generalization of creative achievements in domestic art history, representatives of the Polish sector of creative industries in support of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, the activity of Polish artists turned into an effective cultural and artistic front in support of Ukraine. In particular, their numerous “combat squad” became the representatives of graphic design - poster artists, illustrators, designers. Their compositions are characterized by the psychological depth of the disclosure the leading thought – the support of Ukraine, the unbreakable unity with it in the fight against rashism. It found out, that the innovative idea of the Polish artist Hubert Kampa with regard to the using of wooden boards from ammunition boxes as material basis for works of sacred art, full of deep symbolism, at the same time, it actualizes in a rather creative way in European society the problem of the war in Ukraine. It is determined that powerful Polish artists’ support of Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian aggressor represents their musical creativity. Vocal and instrumental compositions are the clear cultural signals of unity with the Ukrainian people, in their difficult time of trial. It is concluded, that in general their works, that created “from the need of the heart” are a manifestation of solidarity with Ukraine, are characterized by a high degree of empathy and cordocentrism. Simultaneously, they are cultural and artistic manifestations of international opposition to Russian aggression, visual and soun d narratives of modern art of resistance.

„Rzuć K8 na inicjatywę”, czyli o narracji drugoosobowej w grach fabularnych

 The aim of the article is to present the phenomenon of using the second-person narrative in tabletop role-playing games. Despite its ambiguous status in literary projects, the dyadic narrative is the basic component of the phenomenon of pen-and-paper RPGs. In the intro­duction, the author briefly introduces the specificity of text-based narrative games and the history of their creation. Then the most popular systems, such as Dungeons & Dragons or Vampire: The Masquerade, were characterized, as well as examples of games created in Poland. To illustrate the phenomenon, official manuals, and recordings of sessions of the most popular Polish artists published on YouTube were used. When discussing examples of second-person narration, the author draws attention to its occurrence in guides and in the statements of the player functioning as the Game Master. The Game Master is a specific narrator of heroes’ adventures, who in his action smoothly moves between different types of narratives (first, sec­ond and third person): he describes the scenery and actions of NPCs and creatures, constructs statements of characters not guided by other participants of the session, but also comments on the actions and commands of player-created heroes. It is precisely in this last type of activity that the dyadic narrative is extremely important. In the statements of the Game Master, it manifests itself primarily as a commentary on the actions of the characters, the continuation of the plot after the actions and statements of the players, and when consulting the heroes’ further actions, but also serves technical communication related primarily to the mechanics of throwing polyhedral dice. The use of a second-person narrative in RPGs primarily contributes to increasing the immersion, the involvement, and the sense of interactivity between players.

ГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ ПОРТРЕТЫ КИСТИ ЯНА КСАВЕРИЯ КАНЕВСКОГО ИЗ СОБРАНИЯ КН. ВИТГЕНШТЕЙНОВ

The Polish artist Jan Ksawery Kaniewski is one of the little-studied portrait painters of the "Pushkin era", having depicted many of the great Russian poet's contemporaries. The article is devoted to the analysis of watercolor and pencil portraits from the collection of the princes of Wittgenstein, it provides some biographical information about the artist's life and the vicissitudes of his models' fate. The analysis of the album with portraits of Wittgenstein's servants created by Kaniewski, allows to identify the principles of the compositional construction of the portrait in the context of the profession, which were revealed by the artist for the first time, but were not developed in the art of the XIXth century. Some pencil portraits approach the boundaries of genre art, which is an undoubted creative success of the artist and makes his work unique. Based on a comparison of works in two albums of the artist's drawings, the author concludes that the choice of portrait technique depends on the person being portrayed. As a confidant of the Wittgensteins, Kaniewski was able to capture many people related to this family: the children of the prince, employees and servants, acquaintances.

Józefa Mehoffera konkursowy projekt polichromii kościoła Franciszkanów w Krakowie, 1894. Próba rekonstrukcji koncepcji dekoracyjnej artysty

Józef Mehoffer’s competition design for the painting decoration of the Franciscan Church in Kraków in 1894 has not yet been found. This article is an attempt to reconstruct the artist’s decorative concept on the basis of the surviving sketches for the project, as well as notes drawn and written in a sketchbook from 1893–1894. The artist, who was in Paris in February 1894, heard about the competition from Tadeusz Stryjeński. The project he sent to the jury in May 1894 did not meet the formal requirements; it was too sketch-like and unpolished and was not accepted. Mehoffer began work on it with detailed studies of sources and iconography, documented by his drawings and notes in his sketchbook. These bear witness to his technical dependence on Jan Matejko and the painters of the historicist school. The artist’s meticulous approach in this respect was perhaps one of the reasons why the project was not completed within the three-month deadline set by the jury. A stylistic analysis of Mehoffer’s sketches for the decoration of the Franciscan Church leads to the conclusion that they were created under the influence of Matejko’s polychrome decoration of the presbytery of St Mary’s Church in Kraków, as well as other sacral decoration of the second half of the 19 th century, associated with the current of academic historicism – an important model for the Polish artist was undoubtedly the polychrome decoration of the chapels of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris – by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Maurice Ouradou. Mehoffer owed much of his inspiration for the iconography of his design, in which the dominant motifs were depictions of 13 th -century Polish saints, nuns, female rulers and Piast princes, to Matejko’s work, "The Defeat of Legnica – The Rebirth of Poland. 1241", 1888. The overall vision for the decoration of the Franciscan Church, which he did not include in the competition design but described in his notes, went beyond historicism. It demonstrates the artist’s sensitivity to the new trends in art at the turn of the 20 th century, and the fact that he was already aware of the profound changes taking place in the style of monumental painting and in the perception of its function.

Dispersion of a Work of Art – Adam Marczyński, Tadeusz Kantor, Karol Broniatowski

The article is an analysis of selected works of art of Polish artists of the 1970s: compositions by Adam Marczyński from the Variable series (the second half of the 1960s and 1970s), the Multipart action by Tadeusz Kantor (1970) and figures by Karol Broniatowski (from the Threat and Big Man series, 1976-1977), in which the title dispersion is understood as a consequence of the disintegration of the prototype by initiating a further journey of its already emancipated components. The material turn perspective was also referred to in the analysis: Bruno Latour's non-anthropocentric Actor-Network Theory (ANT), according to which it can be assumed that a work of art and its creator constitute a certain social network within which all “actors” function on equal terms in the community of “humans and non-humans”, as well as the anthropological theory of art by Alfred Gell, who proposed replacing the study of the object of art as a carrier of symbolic meanings with the study of a work of art as an object in a network of relations, trying to answer questions about the motives and contexts of action of social “makers” (artists) and their production of “indexes” (works of art). In the study, the act of the initial ordering of the system in a work of art and its subsequent disintegration – dispersion – is assessed from the perspective of the concept of entropy, derived from the field of physics, which is a measure of the degree of disorder in a given system – and its opposite, negentropy

"Pingpongista": Józefa Hena czytanie Jedwabnego

The paper is about a Józef Hen’s novel The Ping-Pong Player (2008). The author analyzes it as a writer’s response to the war tragedy in Jedwabne (1941). He considers the problem in the various contexts: of history, of Hen’s work, of a contemporary Polish art.

Bolesław Leśmian in Italy: Milo De Angelis and his heavenly journey

The artistic creativity of Bolesław Leśmian – remarkably colourful, musical, and philosophically versatile – has endeared him to readers worldwide over the course of a century. In spite of many socio-political barriers, Leśmian’s poetry become a point of reference, as was the case in Italy in the 1970s. At this time a fi rst encounter with the works of the Polish artist became a crucial moment for a young poet – Milo De Angelis. After a stay in Warsaw, De Angelis founded a literary magazine called “Niebo”, number 11 of which was entirely dedicated to Leśmian, whose visions profoundly infl uenced the poetics of the Italian author, even in later years.