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Post by pieter on Nov 24, 2005 10:49:04 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Nov 24, 2005 10:51:30 GMT -7
About Polish artOne particular feature of Polish culture, highlighting it in the eyes of the world, is the unusual melange of metaphysical searching and historical experience. This is also true of the visual arts. During the period of partition, Poles succeeded in preserving their identity only thanks to religion and culture. In a country deprived of its own state and torn into three partitions, art and poetry had specific tasks: maintaining the national memory, organizing the Polish imagination and preserving the national identity. Nineteenth-century Polish painting developed under the influence of great Romantic poetry: Matejko, Grottger, and later Malczewski and Wyspianski, created a real canon of Polish symbols, to which succeeding generations still refer. The social role of art was a challenge and a burden for Polish artists. Polish culture's central problem, freedom, entailed also fighting for artistic sovereignty and the autonomy of art. The reconstruction of the Polish state after 1918 ran together with the search for a Polish road to independence in Art. Art no longer had to be custodian of the national memory, so it began to reach towards international patterns, adding local significance to them. This was the path of the interwar groupings Polish Formalists, or Rhythm, whose achievement was a synthesis of Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and the homegrown influences of folk art. This style was fruitfully employed chiefly in functional art and architecture. The success of handicrafts and poster art, the popularity of the Zakopane style and the Country House style is the Polish input into the elegant international convention of art deco. Another important current of these times was Constructivism, the Polish variety of the progressive avant-garde. The artists gathered together in groups such as Block, Praesens, and a.r. linked a belief in progress and reason with a thirst to experiment. Into the visual landscape of the country, they wanted to introduce order, discipline and functionalism. The group of colorists also laid out new tasks for themselves. Painters from the Paris Committee outlined their aim as a change in Poles' tastes. Referring to French Postimpressionism, they fought for the quality and independence of painting. After the Second World War, they dominated in art schools, and the aesthetic doctrine of colorism turned out to be one of the more influential and long lasting. A key stage, fundamental to understanding Polish mentality, is the years of the Second World War. The trauma of the occupation, the experience of the camps, deportations, executions, the tragedy of the Holocaust, all appear in Polish art, literature and film to this day, an ever-present point of reference, an eternal memento. The first few years after the war, before the decreeing of socialist realism, is one of the most interesting periods in Polish art. The view of these years was colored by the Krakow Group[/i], artists who had come from the Occupation Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor. His thoughts about independence under all conditions were essential for the history of post-war art. The work of the Krakow Group[/i] is the art of the domesticated avant-garde, linking the necessity for contemporaneity with a loyalty to tradition. Spatial searching and lyrical metaphor on the borders of abstraction enable us to name this Polish variety of surrealism Metaphorical Painting.
The Stalinist years were a period of obedient, manipulated art. At that time, there was a Europe-wide discussion concerning the idea of realism and the great, monumental style - the Polish response was the art of the Self-educating Group with Andrzej Wroblewski, the proposal of a strong, harsh figuration expressing the tragedy of war and the post-war dreariness. The current known as Socially engaged art was started by artists exhibiting in Warsaw's 'Arsenal in 1955, who fought for the right to spontaneity and a tragic vision of the world, painting aggressive, pointed pictures following the conventions of Expressionism. The Arsenal legend has survived as an attitude, an ethos of non-neutral art, a witness to the times reminding us of the wronged person.
The political thaw at the end of the Fifties brought fascination with the world movement of informal, and also a so-called painting of matter. The best example of this is the original oeuvre of the Nowa Huta group, or the paintings of Jan Lebenstein, who was the discovery of the Paris Biennale in 1959. Since the Sixties, in spite of political interference and the limitations imposed by Communist censorship, Polish art developed parallel with European, experiencing successive stages: new figuration, conceptualism, performance art, minimal-art. Independent galleries and avant-garde artists nurtured the link with the living 'contemporary impulse'. Artistic life in the People's Poland created, however, constant tension between artists and the authorities. The turning point was 1981 - the squashing of the first 'Solidarity' and the imposition of martial law.
The art of the Eighties, the time of the 'war between state and nation', had its serious side - the Independent Culture Movement, close to the Church, the return to national and religious symbols - and also its comic side - paintings of 'wild' expression (Warsaw's 'Gruppa'), the quasi-performance movement of Wroclaw 'Orange Alternative' or the Lodz underground in the 'Attic' gallery and the anarchy-dadaist group 'Lodz Kaliska' n On regaining independence, Polish culture ceased to be a battlefield. The return to democracy, however, has not automatically solved all social or national problems; it has only changed their character, context, and sometimes color. New times have brought new threats, new 'hot' topics. Some artists have escaped into privacy with relief, while others still tilt at windmills. The turn of the century has brought a wave of 'critical art', utilizing new media in a discussion about the problems of religion, sexuality and intolerance. This is also 'socially-engaged art', arising out of the need to announce the truth about life in society and the interrelationships between society, history and stereotypes.
See also: culture.poland.com/culture-visualarts-a.php
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aadam
Junior Pole
Posts: 130
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Post by aadam on Nov 24, 2005 13:12:49 GMT -7
Hello Pieter, hello friends, I see that you're wasting no time in your quest to penetrate Polish art&philosophy I'd like to mention here one of my most favourite artistst wordwide, not just Poland-connected, although - yes - so he was. He created both in visual and written art. That's Bruno Schulz here's a link to the fine art by Schulz www.brunoschulz.org/and here a link to the full text of his 'Sklepy cynamonowe' translated into English. www.schulzian.net/cinnamon/index.htmI wholeheartedly encourage everyone here to read that short book and assure that most of you will never forget it. Probably some of you actually won't stop regularly returning to it throughout the rest of their lives. Amazing and extravagant are the most often used words to decribe his prose. More about Schulz (English only) and more of Schulz: www.schulzian.net/Here's a brief Bruno Schulz's bio by Ewa Graczyk Born on 12 July 1892 to a family of assimilated Galician Jews, he was the youngest child of Jakub Schulz (the owner of a textile shop by the town’s market-place) and Henrietta, née Kuhmrker, the daughter of a wealthy wood merchant. In 1902-1910 he was a student at the grammar school in Drohobycz. He was a superb student; he passed his matriculation exams with distinction. In 1910 he started studying architecture at the Technical University in Lwów. In the same year the shop was liquidated because of Bruno’s father’s illness, and the whole family moved to the home of Bruno’s married sister - Hania Hoffman. After a year he gave up studying because of a heart and lung illness and came back to Drohobycz. In 1917 he left for Vienna with part of his family. There he again commenced his architectural studies. After three months all the Schulzes came back to Drohobycz. The following years, practically until his debut in 1933, were for Schulz a very difficult period of struggling with numerous problems, both external ones and those pertaining to his own psychological as well as spiritual nature. From September 1924 he started to teach drawing and practical skills at secondary schools in Drohobycz. He had constant problems with his teaching duties connected with his lack of a university degree, poor health condition and the enormous and burdensome number of teaching hours, which often left him unable to write. In 1927 W³adys³aw Riff, who was Schultz’s friend and literary confidant, died of tuberculosis (the over-zealous staff of the disinfecting service burnt all his papers). In 1931 Bruno Schulz’s mother died. In 1933 the artist made his debut in "Wiadomoœci Literackie" with a short story, "Ptaki", and in the same year the publishing house "Rój" published his volume entitled "Sklepy cynamonowe" ("Cinnamon Shops"). After the outbreak of the Second World War, on 24 September, the Germans handed over Drohobycz into the Soviet occupiers’ hands. On 1 July 1941, the German army marched into Drohobycz again. The writer then came under the "protection" of a Gestapo officer, Feliks Landau, who used Schulz for numerous painting works. In 1942 Bruno Schulz tried to save his manuscripts and drawings by dividing them into several packages, and entrusting them to trusted people from outside the ghetto. At this time he planned to escape from Drohobycz. His friends from Warsaw provided him with false documents and money. On 19 November the writer set off to the Judenrat for some bread and fell prey to "a wild action" of the local Gestapo. He died in the street, shot by Karl Günther, a Gestapo officer who murdered Schulz in revenge for the shooting of his own protégée, a dentist called Löwe, by Landau. Writer, graphic artist, literary critic. Together with Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and Witold Gombrowicz he brought about the rebirth of the artistic language in Polish literature. Literary works: Sklepy cynamonowe ("Cinnamon Shops"), Warsaw 1934, Sanatorium pod klepsydr¹ ("The Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass"), Warsaw 1937
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Post by pieter on Nov 24, 2005 15:22:48 GMT -7
Thank you very much for posting Bruno Schulz, I watched his selfportraits -some of them are very intense and confrontating- and read his short biography you posted here. His selfportraits remind me of the selfportraits of Schönberg and Max Beckmann (1884-1950). He is a very good artist and painter. Important is that his work survived the war and that that was stronger than the totalitarian barbarism and madness that tried to destroy art and literature. Have you ever heard of Charlotte Salomon, a girl who painted a visual diary (aquarel) of her dramatic life, I saw here work in the Jewish Historical Museum of Amsterdam (a museum I visit regulary, because of it's good exhibitions of art and photography). ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Salomon ) Selfportrait by Charlotte SalomonNow I am going to read Bruno Schulz. Thank you for the links. Pieter
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nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on Nov 24, 2005 19:15:36 GMT -7
Pieter, Aadam,
Excellent links and reading - thanks.
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Post by jimpres on Nov 25, 2005 8:21:36 GMT -7
Firefox did not open the pictures. I will have to use another browser. I.E. I suspect.
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Post by Jaga on Nov 25, 2005 20:19:26 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Nov 25, 2005 23:14:36 GMT -7
Jaga,
Thanks for posting the links!
Pieter
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Post by estelle on Nov 26, 2005 2:29:22 GMT -7
pieter,
I just looked at the link of the Polish art site you posted and what occurs me is that the polish tradition of art is more Romantic and less postmodern/contemporary as we are used to in Holland, I should look at it more carefully to give some detailled reply, I just took a quick look.
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Post by rdywenur on Nov 26, 2005 7:10:36 GMT -7
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aadam
Junior Pole
Posts: 130
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Post by aadam on Nov 26, 2005 12:11:13 GMT -7
this is the only Polish artist I am familiar with. Has anyone else ever heard of him. [ I haven't. In a way you're in a perfect position, Rdy A lot of delight is still ahead of you! For the good beginning: www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Artists.htmjust one painting from the above link
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Post by rdywenur on Nov 26, 2005 12:54:04 GMT -7
My cousin Henry paints and when I left to go back home he presented one he was working on to me as a gift. That is my favorite Polish Painter and artist !!!! <3
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Post by rdywenur on Nov 26, 2005 12:55:19 GMT -7
Aadam.. great painting. Thank you.
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Post by rdywenur on Nov 26, 2005 13:08:35 GMT -7
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nancy
European
Posts: 2,144
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Post by nancy on Nov 26, 2005 13:37:47 GMT -7
aadam, i found that site some time ago and decided - long before I realised how famous he is in Poland, that Wyspianski was wonderful.
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