DOI article:
Markowska, Anna: Around 1948: the "gentle revolution" and art history
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52521#0166
160
Anna Markowska
offer of the communist regime quite attractive not only for the left. Thus, the gentle
revolution proved to be a Machiavellian move, disseminating power to centralize it
later more effectively On the other hand, the return to the Paris exemplars resulted in
the aestheticization of radical and undemocratic changes. The received idea that the
evil regime was visualized only by the ugly socialist realism is a disguise of the Polish
dream of innocence and historical purity, while it was the war which gave way to the
revolution, and right after the war artists not only played games with the regime, but
gladly accepted social comfort guaranteed by authoritarianism. Neither artists, nor art
historians started a discussion about the totalizing stain on modernity and the exclu-
sion of the other. Even the folk art was instrumentalized by the state which manipu-
lated folk artists to such an extent that they often lost their original skills. Horrified
by the war atrocities and their consequences, art historians limited their activities to
the most urgent local tasks, such as making inventories of artworks, reorganization of
institutions, and reconstruction. Mass expropriation, a consequence of the revolution,
was not perceived by museum personnel as a serious problem, since thanks to it muse-
ums acquired more and more exhibits, while architects and restorers could implement
their boldest plans. The academic and social neutralization of expropriation favored
the birth of a new human being, which was one of the goals of the revolution. Along
the ethnic homogenization of society, focusing on Polish art meant getting used to
monophony No cultural opposition to the authoritarian ideas of modernity appeared
- neither the École de Paris as a paradigm of the high art, nor the folklore manipulated
by the state were able to come up with the ideas of the weak subject or counter-his-
tory Despite the social revolution, the class distinction of ethnography and high art
remained unchanged.
Keywords:
revolution, art after 1945, communism, autocracy, folklore
Anna Markowska
offer of the communist regime quite attractive not only for the left. Thus, the gentle
revolution proved to be a Machiavellian move, disseminating power to centralize it
later more effectively On the other hand, the return to the Paris exemplars resulted in
the aestheticization of radical and undemocratic changes. The received idea that the
evil regime was visualized only by the ugly socialist realism is a disguise of the Polish
dream of innocence and historical purity, while it was the war which gave way to the
revolution, and right after the war artists not only played games with the regime, but
gladly accepted social comfort guaranteed by authoritarianism. Neither artists, nor art
historians started a discussion about the totalizing stain on modernity and the exclu-
sion of the other. Even the folk art was instrumentalized by the state which manipu-
lated folk artists to such an extent that they often lost their original skills. Horrified
by the war atrocities and their consequences, art historians limited their activities to
the most urgent local tasks, such as making inventories of artworks, reorganization of
institutions, and reconstruction. Mass expropriation, a consequence of the revolution,
was not perceived by museum personnel as a serious problem, since thanks to it muse-
ums acquired more and more exhibits, while architects and restorers could implement
their boldest plans. The academic and social neutralization of expropriation favored
the birth of a new human being, which was one of the goals of the revolution. Along
the ethnic homogenization of society, focusing on Polish art meant getting used to
monophony No cultural opposition to the authoritarian ideas of modernity appeared
- neither the École de Paris as a paradigm of the high art, nor the folklore manipulated
by the state were able to come up with the ideas of the weak subject or counter-his-
tory Despite the social revolution, the class distinction of ethnography and high art
remained unchanged.
Keywords:
revolution, art after 1945, communism, autocracy, folklore