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DOI Artikel:Kossowska, Irena: Julian Stańczak: "optyczne obrazy" czy "wyselekcjonowana energia wizualna"?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48914#0127
JULIAN STAŃCZAK
Irena Kossowska
JULIAN STAŃCZAK
OPTICAL PAINTINGS" OR "SELECTED VISUAL ENERGY"?
Summary
Julian Stańczak belongs to those artists who through
theirown searchings and accoinplishments have marked
out new directions in the development of modern art,
lending the reshaping of abstractive art in the United
States a new dynamism. The appearance of Stańczak's
works on the New York art market in 1964 resulted in
coining of the term "Op Art" to refer to this previously
unacknowledged tendency in non-figurative painting,
its status recognised and promoted thereafter by
critics.
Stańczak's art began to intrigue and fascinate at a time
when the interational hegemony of "hot" abstraction was
undergoing its decline. Martha Jackson, promoting the
expressionist abstraction through her gallery on New
York's 69th. Street, was the first to propose Stańczak an
exhibition. In contrast to the spontaneity of gesture in
"action painting", Stańczak's painting was based on
restrictive principles, economy in means of expression
and a rigorous method applied during the creative
process. In accordance with his conception, the artist
breaks down the picture of empirical reality and obtains
from the mass of details composing it those elements
most essential in order to reconstruct from them a
synthetic model of the visual perception of nature. In
investigating mutual effect that colour and form have on
each other, the painter creates visual stimuli analogous
to those experienced during sensory contact with the real
world around us.
Fascination in "optical painting" replaced the
interest in Pop-Art and in the mid-1960s Op Art
unexpectedly began to dominate the art scene in
America and Western Europe. The aesthetic
assumptions of this movement fulfilled the basie
requirements of twentieth century modernism; ie the
demand to awake self-awareness and activity within the
viewer while perceiving the work of art. The searchings
of Op Art focussed attention on phenomena occurring
during the act of visual perception which, while being
subject to universal laws, are individualised in the case
of each act of cognition.
Stańczak's art reitterates belief in a logically
organised universe, whose laws we are capable of
sensing intuitively and which we are incapable of
entirely fathoming intellectually. The artist creates an
abstract reality freed of direct relations to nature
surrounding him and one of sensual stimuli analogous
to natural phenomena, but retaining an autonomous and
purely artistic character.
In Stańczak's paintings rhythmical arrangements of
parallel lines emerge and disappear in undefined space,
being composed with precision, while at the same time
the way in which they exist cannot be grasped. What is
perceptible is the vibration of a volatile matter capable
of being seen but not of being touched. The intriguing
aspect of this image is the refined coexistence of the
directed course of lines and their illusionary character.
Stańczak's reasoned compositions provide order to
the chaos of phenomena and experiences of everyday
life; simultaneously they quieten the memories of the
artist's tragically complicated past.
Julian Stańczak was born in Poland in 1928. His
family was forcefully transported during the Second
World War to a camp at Perm in Siberia, from where,
following years of wandering, it found its way to
London in 1948. After arriving in the British Isles
Stańczak studied at the Borough Polytechnic Institute
until 1950 when the family emigrated to the United
States, setting up home in Cleveland. Julian graduated
in 1954 from the Cleveland Institute of Art, receiving an
undergraduate degree two years later at Yale University
as a student under the supervision of Josef Albers and
Conrad Marca-Relli. In the years 1957-'64 Stańczak
lectured at the Art Academy of Cincinnati to be finally
given the post of professor of art at the Cleveland
Institute of Art in 1964.
Stańczak's art evolves in time. The artist subjects the
geometrie schemes applied by him to constant
experimentation, and a consistent element is the
precision with which he introduces lines, conditioning
the creation of changeable ilusionary forms.
Pictorial spaces in Stańczak's paintings become
ethereal spectacles of light emitted by hues. The mutual
dispatching and penetrating of surfaces becomes
increasingly complicated. The semi-transparent screens
would appear to create constant movement, drawing
apart and unfolding, fading away and melting into the
background only to reappear in the foreground. A
regular chequered pattern being transformed by tone
modulation and colour vibration distinguishes the
structure of many paintings. The simplifying of means
117
Irena Kossowska
JULIAN STAŃCZAK
OPTICAL PAINTINGS" OR "SELECTED VISUAL ENERGY"?
Summary
Julian Stańczak belongs to those artists who through
theirown searchings and accoinplishments have marked
out new directions in the development of modern art,
lending the reshaping of abstractive art in the United
States a new dynamism. The appearance of Stańczak's
works on the New York art market in 1964 resulted in
coining of the term "Op Art" to refer to this previously
unacknowledged tendency in non-figurative painting,
its status recognised and promoted thereafter by
critics.
Stańczak's art began to intrigue and fascinate at a time
when the interational hegemony of "hot" abstraction was
undergoing its decline. Martha Jackson, promoting the
expressionist abstraction through her gallery on New
York's 69th. Street, was the first to propose Stańczak an
exhibition. In contrast to the spontaneity of gesture in
"action painting", Stańczak's painting was based on
restrictive principles, economy in means of expression
and a rigorous method applied during the creative
process. In accordance with his conception, the artist
breaks down the picture of empirical reality and obtains
from the mass of details composing it those elements
most essential in order to reconstruct from them a
synthetic model of the visual perception of nature. In
investigating mutual effect that colour and form have on
each other, the painter creates visual stimuli analogous
to those experienced during sensory contact with the real
world around us.
Fascination in "optical painting" replaced the
interest in Pop-Art and in the mid-1960s Op Art
unexpectedly began to dominate the art scene in
America and Western Europe. The aesthetic
assumptions of this movement fulfilled the basie
requirements of twentieth century modernism; ie the
demand to awake self-awareness and activity within the
viewer while perceiving the work of art. The searchings
of Op Art focussed attention on phenomena occurring
during the act of visual perception which, while being
subject to universal laws, are individualised in the case
of each act of cognition.
Stańczak's art reitterates belief in a logically
organised universe, whose laws we are capable of
sensing intuitively and which we are incapable of
entirely fathoming intellectually. The artist creates an
abstract reality freed of direct relations to nature
surrounding him and one of sensual stimuli analogous
to natural phenomena, but retaining an autonomous and
purely artistic character.
In Stańczak's paintings rhythmical arrangements of
parallel lines emerge and disappear in undefined space,
being composed with precision, while at the same time
the way in which they exist cannot be grasped. What is
perceptible is the vibration of a volatile matter capable
of being seen but not of being touched. The intriguing
aspect of this image is the refined coexistence of the
directed course of lines and their illusionary character.
Stańczak's reasoned compositions provide order to
the chaos of phenomena and experiences of everyday
life; simultaneously they quieten the memories of the
artist's tragically complicated past.
Julian Stańczak was born in Poland in 1928. His
family was forcefully transported during the Second
World War to a camp at Perm in Siberia, from where,
following years of wandering, it found its way to
London in 1948. After arriving in the British Isles
Stańczak studied at the Borough Polytechnic Institute
until 1950 when the family emigrated to the United
States, setting up home in Cleveland. Julian graduated
in 1954 from the Cleveland Institute of Art, receiving an
undergraduate degree two years later at Yale University
as a student under the supervision of Josef Albers and
Conrad Marca-Relli. In the years 1957-'64 Stańczak
lectured at the Art Academy of Cincinnati to be finally
given the post of professor of art at the Cleveland
Institute of Art in 1964.
Stańczak's art evolves in time. The artist subjects the
geometrie schemes applied by him to constant
experimentation, and a consistent element is the
precision with which he introduces lines, conditioning
the creation of changeable ilusionary forms.
Pictorial spaces in Stańczak's paintings become
ethereal spectacles of light emitted by hues. The mutual
dispatching and penetrating of surfaces becomes
increasingly complicated. The semi-transparent screens
would appear to create constant movement, drawing
apart and unfolding, fading away and melting into the
background only to reappear in the foreground. A
regular chequered pattern being transformed by tone
modulation and colour vibration distinguishes the
structure of many paintings. The simplifying of means
117