Polish Symbolist Paintings That Spoke To my Soul
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Polish Symbolist Paintings That Spoke To My Soul
Current mood: busy
Category: Art and Photography
"When choosing my destiny, I choose insanity."
In The Twilight of The Stars, Tadeusz Micinski.
My Website: www.thepanicartist.com
My Blog: thepanicartist.livejournal.com
National Gallery of Ireland Website: www.nationalgallery.ie
Last weekend I went with my girlfriend to see 'Paintings From
Poland' (Symbolism to Modern Art 1880-1939) at the National Gallery of
Ireland. When I tell friends abroad about the Dublin of today they are
very surprised. Our streets teem with every race, nationality, creed
and colour - and I love it. As I say to my girlfriend when we see all
the beautiful women from around the world walking Dublin's streets: "I
am all for integration!" But seriously I welcome the influx of new
cultures, new outlooks and new perspectives.
These days - I do not recognize the city of my birth. What has
happened to Ireland in the last fifteen years has been nothing short
of miraculous. I grew up in a poverty stricken, backward and
intolerant Ireland - sparsely populated by a virtually all white, all
Catholic, all Irish population whose knowledge of the world outside
our shores was limited to a sun holiday in Spain, the television shows
of Britain and the cinema of America. In the 1980's virtually nobody
wanted to live in Ireland - and even if they did they could not get a
job. But the Celtic Tiger turned our country of emigres into a country
of immigrants. When the English comedian Lenny Henry (who by the way
is black) appeared on the Late Late Show in the mid 1980's he thought
it was hilarious the way people looked at him in the street - it was
not racism - just amazement - they had never seen a black man in the
flesh! Now a days unless you are purple or pink - nobody will notice
you!
Thankfully conscious racism is still very rare - though it does exist.
But nagging at the back of many Irish people's mind is the question -
how long will the good times last? Already there is there a world-wide
economic turn down and it looks like it will get worse. How will Irish
hospitality fair when jobs are scarce? Could we see the same
segregation and racism that has cursed other European countries? How
in God's name can we prevent what happened in France and Holland -
happening here?
One way is integration of the foreign community into the Irish
community - no ghettos, no 'white-flight', no nations within a nation
- mutual respect and mutual understanding. Our newspapers and
television stations have gone out of their way to have immigrant
writers, commentators and actors in the media. So 'Fair City' a soap-
opera on RTE 1 (kind of our version of BBC 1's Eastenders) - has long
had foreign characters, and 'water-cooler' stories of racism,
prejudice, crime - but also deep friendship. In Dublin we have 'The
City Channel' a public broadcast station - which has programs made and
featuring Polish, African and Asian news and stories of Dublin life. I
remember a few years ago watching 'African Eye' one night - when they
had a story on a female Zulu dance group in Dublin. The first shot was
of about ten young African women dressed in great Zulu costumes and
doing a fierce dance. Then they started interviewing the girls and I
fell out of my seat when half of them spoke in the thickest Ballymun
accent I have ever heard and said they had never been to Africa!
Nothing encapsulated more for me - the shifting nature of identity in
Ireland.
The Polish community in Dublin is one of the largest - there are
Polish newspapers, polish shops, and Polish translations in many
places. Since the early 1990's galleries like The Temple Bar Gallery -
have forged links with artists and institutions in Poland. But we have
seen less of historical Polish art. So this exhibition was very
important.
But I have to say I had my doubts. Was it all just a cynical operation
of political propaganda? Was it just smug artistic political-
correctness? Was it just a middle-class exercise - of no importance to
the common Polish or Irish man? Could art really tell us things about
our new friends in Ireland? Well perhaps it is cynical propaganda -
perhaps it is only of interest to a small elite - but I also think it
is a highly illuminating exhibition. So now I have to say - bring it
on! Bring on Nigerian art, Chinese art, Lithuanian art - let us all
see how the other thinks - let us see the undiscovered hero's of world
art - let us share our visions.
As you can gather - I went with great curiosity to see this show.
Poland really is another country - one I know very little about. But
my girlfriend was far less interested. What paintings we had seen on
the very inadequate National Gallery website were poor choices and
even though she liked (with uncritical abandon) female artists - my
girlfriend had no interest in this shows 'World Star' - Tamara de
Lempicka. As for me - I thought de Lempicka an utter joke and her
canvases nothing more than calendar art - perpetrated on the art world
by politically blinded Feminist historians in the 1970's. But more on
this joke later. Anyway I wasn't going to see that silly opportunistic
woman - I was going to see my old soul mate in the madhouse -
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz.
As usual the first thing we did when reaching the gallery - was head
for the book-shop and my girlfriend kindly bought the catalog for the
Polish show (I was practically broke). Flicking threw its thick pages
we were utterly delighted and surprised by what we saw - and could not
wait to see the paintings in the flesh. At e25 and 203pp with over
seventy colour plates and an exciting text - which is a fine mix of
connoisseur appraisal and sociological and philosophical speculation -
it is a gem. However in parts I sensed the strain of translation from
Polish to English.
Yet again the National Gallery bookshop was a devilish temptation for
me - but since I had only seven Euros' in my pocket - I knew I could
only look. Seeing all the newly brought in Christmas coffee-table art
books - drove me mad with desire - and I had to walk briskly away from
them, lest I lose my mind. Still I will treat myself to some at the
holidays - my first buy being the absolutely essential Picasso A Life
Vol.3 by John Richardson which I have waited on since buying, reading
and loving Vol. 2 in 1997. I cannot wait to read and review this
biography!
Before going around the show we went into the coffee shop - and my
girlfriend treated me to a Mocha - and we shared a mouth-watering
slice of Strawberry sponge cake which was utterly delicious.
After our little treat we headed into the exhibition - which from the
very first paintings - blew our minds! This exhibition of Polish art -
was quite simply the strangest, most impressive and most surprising
exhibition I have seen in 2007. Yes the Lucian Freud in I.M.M.A. was a
better solo exhibition - but I went to that with a total all consuming
knowledge of his work, his life and his place in English society. This
exhibition on the other hand was a total Jack-In-The-Box of surprises,
revelations and discoveries.
I only knew a handful of these Polish artists before hand (Stanislaw
Ignacy Witkiewicz, Tamara de Lempicka and Jacek Malczewski) and my
knowledge of Poland was limited to; Napoleon's battle at Austerlitz,
Germany's invasion and occupation of Poland in WWII and the tragic
destruction of Warsaw in 1944 - after its second uprising (the first
being the tormented and bloody Jewish uprising of 1943) and finally a
vague knowledge of Poland under the Communists, the Solidarity
movement, Pope John Paul II - and this ravaged and abused countries
recent emergence as a European democracy. In other words - no more
than is necessary to be a competent player of Trivial Pursuit.
The major first part of this exhibition dealt with the Symbolist
painters like; Kazimierz Stabrowski, Jozef Mehoffer, Jacek Malczewski,
Witold Wojtkiewicz, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Konrad
Krzyzanowski, Franciszek Zmurko, Wojciech Weiss, Konrad Krzyzanowski,
Jan Matejko, Franciszel Zmurko Bronislaw Worjciech Linke. Yes. Yes I
know. I had never heard of them of most of before either - but believe
me they are worth checking out!
In their lush morbidly coloured paintings; a Chimera (half woman /half
tiger) play violins in the countryside, tumultuous streams of human-
bodies hurtle across the flat land like a whirlwind, monstrously large
dragonflies threaten a family in a garden, empty rooms flicker by the
light of a couple of candles, mentally broken people play with dolls
as ragged as themselves, lurid colours speak of music and death, mauve
pirate ships sail on purple seas, jesters slump in despair, a murdered
odalisque, and a faun plays the reed to a barefoot girl and a baffled
and ruffled group of turkeys (the critics). Moreover everywhere there
are secret codes for Polish nationalism and independence.
I cannot remember an exhibition before where I was so in need of the
little explanations on white plaques by the paintings. The symbols and
stories behind these paintings were essential - to their understanding
as narratives. But unlike so much conceptual art of today - the ideas
behind these Symbolist paintings were genuinely odd, imaginative,
complex and evocative.
Now earlier I mentioned that this show might seem an elitist exercise.
But even if you don't know much about art - you will probably love
this show. If you like the Fin-De-Siecle, Fantasy Art, Dark Art, Comic
books, Satanism, Decadence, early Walt Disney films like Fantasia -
you will love this show! This is where so many of the ideas of fantasy
come from - but it was made by superbly trained academic painters.
Moreover if you hate Modern art and like your paintings realist,
crammed with detail and telling a story - you will love these
canvases.
In painting there are so many ways to fail - so many ways to be
rotten. But there are also - so many different ways to succeed. Many
of these painters were clearly men of great intellectual curiosity,
passion, and skill - but god knows they had so many other things
against them that were outside of their control - being born in Poland
and not France in the 1860's was just one of them.
At its most reductive the history of Modern art is a history of
France, Spain, Germany Russia and The United States. It is assumed
that the greatest artists in the world were either born in Paris or
New York - or emigrated to them. It is of course a gross and stupid
assumption that shows like this proves wrong. I am not saying I found
a Polish Picasso or Matisse - but I found artists at least of the
second or third rank - who pulled off some fascinating and original
canvases - some of them world-class masterpieces. Which reminds me of
when Orson Well's was interviewed by Parkinson on ITV in the 1970's.
Parkinson put it to Wells that he was a genius - to which Wells
laughed - and replied something to the effect that there had only been
two real geniuses of the twentieth century; Einstein and Picasso - and
probably some guy in China we have never heard of! He was absolutely
right, and how many 'could-have-been-geniuses' were there in countries
like Romania, Iran, Johannesburg or Hong Kong - artists who never had
the support structure of a superpower state like those in France or
the US.
The biographies of many of the major Symbolist's - was a sad codex of
human suffering, neglect, misunderstanding, madness, alcoholism and
often suicide - only the Expressionists were more tortured. These
dark, lush, fin-de-siecle oil paintings of almost hallucinatory
intensity - spoke of a continent and mankind undergoing the most
profound political, religious, economic, philosophical, sexual and
eventually military upheavals. The Symbolist's like Stuck in Germany,
Klimt in Vienna, Kupka in Prague, Redon in Paris and Hodler in Zurich
had the honesty to express their own confusion of beliefs and
solipsistic and misogynistic fear of women in their art - I respect
them for that. Even if you hate misogyny and want to end it - you have
to first try to bring up the subject and get men and women to be
honest about their feelings.
Symbolism was the training ground for what we would later call
Expressionist artists. The biographies of many of the major
Symbolist's - is a sad codex of human suffering, neglect,
misunderstanding, madness, alcoholism and often suicide - only the
Expressionists were more tortured.
Sometimes the most perceptive writers on art are those that hate most
of it. One such writer is Leon Tolstoy who in his classic polemic
'What is Art?' (1898) - attacked Symbolist's poets and painters in the
following terms; "...there is then no reason why some circle of
perverted people should not create works that titillate their
perverted feelings and are incomprehensible to anyone except
themselves, and call these works art, which in fact is now being done
by the so-called decadents..." Strong stuff, and earlier he had written;
"These are all works by people suffering from erotic mania. These
people are apparently convinced that, since their entire life, as a
result of their morbid condition, is concentrated on the smearing
about of sexual abominations, it must mean that the entire life of the
world is concentrated on the same thing." In an age of Internet porn
overdose these paintings might seem a bit tame to us - but they are
undoubtedly still very peculiar.
In defense of them I would point out to Tolstoy the seriousness of
their academic training, their sheer skill in drawing and mastery of
colour and brushwork. I tell you now - there is not one painter alive
today - who can paint as technically correct as these these artists
who died only about a hundred years ago. This is in large part thanks
to Jan Matejko who features at the beginning of this exhibition.
Matejko taught most of these early Symbolist's the art of figure
drawing, composition, chiaroscuro, brushwork, colour - but unlike most
academic painters - he did not crush their creativity, identity or
passion in the process.
Next I would insist that the Symbolist's were honest and courageous
men who sought to revel their inner demons - long before Freud and the
Surrealists. I would add that their work tells us just as much about
the twilight of their epoch as the Impressionists. But where as the
Impressionists were the fathers of Modernism - the Symbolist were in a
sense the last sterile sons of a family line of Aristocratic painting.
Their project was as doomed to failure as the story of their military
counterparts - the brave, heroic and glorious Polish Cavalry - who
charged German tanks on their horses in 1939 - and were massacred. I
say 'story' because this version is now under attack from Polish
historians who say that The Polish Cavalry actually did quite well in
their battles - and that the 'story' was a form of 'black-propaganda'
by the Nazis. But then the Symbolist's themselves knew all about
'black-propaganda' - they have been written out of fashionable art
history.
The Symbolist's were the first group of artists to make their own
pathology the center of their art. Where the Impressionist had
emphasized the artists eye - the Symbolist's emphases the artists
mind; his fears, his longings, his ambitions, his hopes, his dreams
and his nightmares.
In these Polish Symbolist paintings - I felt I had gone deeper into
the anti-chamber of the pre World Wars Psyche - than in anything
produced by Beckman or even Picasso when painting 'Guernica.' Because
evil does not come out of reason, measure, transparency and maturity -
it comes from immaturity, madness, obscurity and thwarted souls. The
healthy, manly art of those masters could never really explain the
narcissistic, embittered souls of men like Hitler and Stalin.
Another odd experience I had at this exhibition was the sense I had of
traveling back in time - to a very different notion of great painting.
Old anecdotes about the Salons - told of enraptured visitors peering
up close to the Academic paintings with their magnifying glasses -
enthralled by the paint work, detail and sure-handed drawing. What was
true in the 1890's is as true today with these canvases. You have to
see them in the flesh - you simply can't seem the subtlety of colour
modulation, brushwork pastose textures and deep shadows of these
paintings in reproduction. There were packed ranks of visitors around
the Symbolist canvases - taking in every inch of colour and line. But
by the time we had got to the more modern canvases - people were
thinned out and standing off the canvases in growing boredom and
indifference. I completely agreed with them. We went around the
Symbolist section again but not the Cubist, Expressionist, Noe-
Classical and Surrealist sections.
My girlfriend and I both thought that Kazimierz Stabrowski's bold
handling of oil paint - lush, thick, pastose, glossy and opaque -
applied with broad hog-hair brushes - was startlingly reminiscent to
my own painting style particularly in works like Sodium Amytal, 1993
(but done with far greater skill, discipline and professionalism).
Four of the most shockingly modern paintings in the show were small
quick alla-prima oil paintings on canvas by Konrad Krzyzanowski from
1906 - which in their brevity - I swear anticipate the spare canvases
of Luc Tuymans and William Sasnal of today.
However after the high of the Polish Symbolist's - the show slowly
degenerated into weak, academic and opportunistic rip-offs of Cubism,
Expressionism and Surrealism.
That is where my old friend in solitude Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (B.
1885-D. 1939 - he was also called Witkacy) comes in. I first read his
amazing modern novel - Insatiability - in December 1991. Witkacy was
an eccentric avant-guard novelist, dramatist, philosopher and prolific
painter. He suffered from mental illness - and when he heard that the
Russian Army had crossed the border (joining the Nazi's in a low carve
up of Poland) - he committed suicide by taking veronal and cutting his
wrists. I probably would have done the same. So it was appropriate
that I had first read Insatiability - in St. Ita's mental hospital
Portrane - where I had been committed! And when in 1998 I painted 'Art
Is Dead' I had no idea that Witkacy had declared art dead in 1924!
His anti-Utopian and prophetic novel Insatiability - tracked the
adventures of a young nihilistic Pole whose own fate paralleled the
inevitable collapse of Western civilization following a Chinese
Communist invasion from the East. It is not a perfect novel - in fact
it is a bit of a mess - but it is also an original, highly intelligent
- mixed up collection of philosophical observations on; art, sex,
women, madness, metaphysics, the vastness of the universe and the
insignificance of its hero. The great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz said
it best when he wrote "The whole book was nothing but a study of
decay: mad dissonant music, erotic perversion, widespread use of
narcotics, dispossessed thinking, false conversions to Catholicism,
and complex psychopathic personalities." It is quite simply one of the
weirdest books I have ever read (and I've read de Sade, Bataille,
Joyce and Burrows). I had no idea if it was any good as literature -
but it stayed lodged in my brain. I have to say - I feel the same for
many of the wonderful Polish Symbolist painters.
I still love Insatiability - and only re-read parts of it a few weeks
ago. So I went with fond hopes that his paintings would turn out to be
amazing. I had seen a few of them in reproduction and thought very
little of them - his Expressionist phase looked artless and badly
drawn - while his Surrealist phase looked little better than the
drawings in crayon many adolescents draw when high on drugs (Witkacy
experimented with hallucingenics). But I hoped seeing his work in the
flesh would change my mind. They did not. I was devastated to discover
they were pretty rotten; immature, graphic, linear, illustrative and
ugly. But my fondness for this anti-hero remains - the world of art
history is all the richer for his presence.
Then there was Tamara de Lempicka's early painting 'Lassitude' (c.
1927) - which proved to be as bad - if not worse that I had thought it
might be in the flesh. Her drawing was no better than that of a high-
school student, her paint was limp, her brushwork flaccid and her
anatomy as defined as a stuffed sausage skin. But its her painting on
all the posters! Frankly her work has only one compelling reason to be
studied in my mind - to illustrate bluntly - how tenth rate female
artists like her are ludicrously overvalued, overpriced and over hyped
in an art world made up largely of women; art student's, artists,
curators, historians, critics and collectors - some of whom only see
what they want to see. Can anyone tell me to my satisfaction how this
stupid and deceitful woman (she lied about all kinds of facts of her
life - Balthus did the same but he was a genuine Master) can be more
famous and written about that her male Polish counterparts like;
Kazimierz Stabrowski, Jozef Mehoffer, Jacek Malczewski, Witold
Wojtkiewicz, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Konrad
Krzyzanowski, Franciszek Zmurko, Wojciech Weiss or Konrad
Krzyzanowski?
Moreover even if you are a craven Feminist politician determined to
advance your prejudices in revenge for what you perceive as
patriarchal repression - why in Gods name chose her? Not one scintilla
of her work is the product of the female imagination - it is the
stolen gammar of Raphael, Ingres and Picasso and the Western (male)
realist tradition. I think the answer is that her work appeals to nuvo-
riche morons of either sex - who now know nothing about painting and
want their vacuous lifestyle endorsed by such equally pushy paintings.
I had to giggle when I read in the catalog that it was the only
painting by her in a Polish national collection and was only purchased
in 1979 - their past museum heads had the right opinion of her - but I
doubt future ones will be so wise.
But all this taken into account - this is a must see exhibition for
anyone remotely concerned with art history - because it gives the lie
to the simplistic notions we have about talent, success and even
genius. Poland - I never knew you - but then what do I really know
about Hungry, Russia, Tibet or Australia?
My Website: www.thepanicartist.com
My Blog: thepanicartist.livejournal.com
National Gallery of Ireland Website: www.nationalgallery.ie