Artystki polskie i ich sztuka w latach 1900–1939. Część IV. Przedstawicielki realizmu

Abstract

POLISH WOMEN ARTISTS AND THEIR ART IN THE PERIOD 1900–1939. PART IV. REPRESENTATIVES OF REALISM

Similar to other countries in Europe, the modern realism in Poland drew on French realist movement developed by Gustave Courbet and a group of like-minded artists who severed with the idealizing academic art in favour of presenting the real world, the “real reality”. In Polish art, realism in its modern form developed in the 1880s and 1890s against the backcloth of a growing economic crisis and a lapse in popularity of the positivist programme propagating society-wide solidarity. The classes earning their living as hired labour were consolidating under the aegis of socialist parties and movements. The bleak existence of the socially underprivileged was strongly reflected in the works of such artists as Maria Dulęba and Teresa Stankiewicz. In the 20th century, artists’ social radicalism and leftist views found an outlet mainly in the artistic avant-garde. Parallel to that, leftist realism emerged as a current in the 1930s, being a follow-up to the tradition of the early 20th century pro-revolutionary realism. The circle of the young representatives of the trend which in the years 1934–1937 operated as the Warszawska Grupa Plastyków (Visual Artists’ Group in Warsaw, a.k.a. the Phrygian Cap) included Helena Malarewiczówna (married name Krajewska). Another variant of the new generation realism was represented by the artists from the Braterstwo Św. Łukasza (St Luke Brotherhood, 1925), the Stowarzyszenie Plastyków Szkoła Warszawska (Warsaw School Visual Artists’ Association, 1929), the Loża Wolnomalarska (Free Painters’ Lodge, 1932 – the Polish name was derived as a play on words from the Masonic [or Freemasons’] Lodge) and the Wileńskie Towarzystwo Artystów Plastyków (Visual Artists’ Society in Wilno, 1920). Members of these groups referred to modern art (as known from Italy, France, the Netherlands) and the cult of Polish tradition, customs and solid realist technique. Among the artists in the Stowarzyszenie Plastyków Szkoła Warszawska was Leokadia Bielska-Tworkowska, while in the Wileńskie Towarzystwo Artystów Plastyków – Helena Teodorowicz-Karpowska and Maria Borzobohata-Woźnicka. The realist current in Polish art after 1900 assumed a range of variants. Many outstanding women were among the artists representing this trend. Unfortunately, however, their output was usually marginalized, if not passed over, in the studies on the history of modern art. The situation has been changing only recently. Apart from the abovementioned women, among the female artists engaged in realist art were Anna Berent, Stefania Daniel-Kossowska, Maria Dulęba, Maria Gerson-Dąbrowska, Maria Pia-Górska, Wanda Komorowska, Michalina Krzyżanowska, Irena Łuczyńska-Szymanowska, Julia Mien, Ludwika Nitschowa, Aniela Pająkówna, Maria Płonowska, Maria Podlewska, Bronisława Rychter- Janowska, Zofia Stankiewicz, Zofia Trzcińska-Kamińska, Maria Wasilkowska and Bronisława Wiesiołowska. These artists represent three generations. The oldest ones were born back in the 1850s, while the youngest during the 1910s and 1920s. The simultaneous activity of a group of artists of different age and, consequently, style  esulted in a substantial diversity of Polish realism during the interwar period. Along with the current that drew on academism, bourgeois realism and critical realism, there also existed the realism enhanced by influences borrowed from Art Nouveau, impressionism, colourism, and the questing currents within the nationalist style. In the years 1900–1939, the art of women evolved similarly to that of men artists. Having been admitted to academic education on Polish universities, a privilege that came with emancipation, women were prepared to undertake a whole panoply of themes; entitled to function independently in the public space, they could also embark on the hitherto inaccessible subjects. As a result, the scope of themes expanded, although the forms that continued to prevail in women’s art were portraiture and small genre scenes connected with everyday and family life. Women seldom painted nudes, and male nudes were particularly infrequent. If it came to eroticism in their pictures, the boundaries of good taste were never overstepped. A trait typical of the art of women realists – and all women painters of the period – is intimism and autobiographism. Practically all subjects and themes are undertaken from the perspective of personal experiences. Such a diverse look often results in a modification to classic motifs. Still, the modifications are not major and they do not introduce new qualities. Women artists’ perspective on the world and on themselves is dependant on the traditionally applicable standards. Going beyond such boundaries would not materialize in art until the 1970s.