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DOI Artikel:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: How the West corroborated socialist realism in the East: Fougeron, Taslitzky and Picasso in Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0335
How the West corroborated Socialist Realism in the East
325
that Picasso contributed to the same discourse as Fougeron. His participation in the
Wrocław Congress and his official tour round Poland, the gift of his pottery to the National
Museum in Warsaw, as well as a plethora of his emblematic drawings and gestures,
supporting both the communist reconstruction and the return to folk art - were appropriat-
ed by the authorities on the same terms as paintings and speeches by Fougeron, as a bless-
ing on new Poland's cultural politics, conferred this time by the world's 'greatest artist'.
Thus it was Picasso who, on an incomparably larger scale, was entrusted the role of the
standard bearer of the western appreciative gaze. And yet, despite the enormous publicity
given to his 1948 visit, perhaps one of his most resonant appearances in Poland, both in
the role of the Communist warrior and in that of the unrelentless formalist, was the inclu-
sion of his Massacre in Korea the above-mentioned exhibition of French art in Warsaw in
1952. Its very presence both corroborated the validity of interventionist realism in the
service of the Party, as well as undermining, in accordance with to Baudin's thesis, the
rigidity of socialist realist doctrine. Reviews of the exhibition would stress the work's
political content, explaining it as 'an artistic synthesis of the horror of war' (ill. 11). De-
spite the reservations that the painting 'might evoke some doubts in the spectator', who
would be expected to demand some 'less symbolic accusation' - not of some imaginary
murderers, but the accusation of a particular crime, which would turn in a more overt way
against American soldiers - it was the 'deeply ideological' content of the painting which
justified its form. Picasso was 'allowed' to paint in the way he wished.66 The same applied
to Leger and Matisse at the Warsaw exhibition. Soon after that, the mainstream of Polish
critical discourse would assert the need of a 'new realism' in Polish art, which would
derive its strength not from the 'dispirited repetitions', but from 'creative experiments',
pointing westwards, to the 'lessons' of Courbet, Cezanne and Picasso, and would extend
the definition of realism so widely that it would incorporate abstraction as well.
Massacre in Korea made another significant appearance in Poland. In October 1956,
with Picasso's 75th birthday exhibition opening in Moscow, while Soviet tanks were in-
vading Hungary, a large reproduction of the work was displayed in a busy Warsaw Street
(ill. 12).67 In the act of deconstructing the interventionist potential of Picasso's art, the
partisan Polish viewer denounced the artist's political stance, pointing to the proximity
between subversion and submission in politically engaged art. S/he did it, however, from
the modernist positions, newly regained in the direct aftermath of the Thaw, revindicating
the belief of art's holy autonomy.68
Much has been written about the syndrome of post-socialist realist nausea, repressing the
desire for political engagement and legibility, which dominated art historical discourses
that were steering elear of social art history, as it might have evoked associations danger-
ously close to its doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist version of the 1950s.69 One of the major
outcomes of this era was the amnesia of Polish (and East European) art history regarding
the impact of Western Communist art in the post-war period. Those Polish artists and
66 STANISŁAWSKI, Nowe drogi malarstwa francuskiego, op. cit.
67 The photograph, first reproduced by Roland Penrose, has been recently reprinted by G. R. UTLEY, Picasso: The
Communist Years, New Haven, London 2000.
68 See also: MURAWSKA-MUTHESIUS, Paris from Behind the Iron Curtain, op. cit., p. 257.
69 P. PIOTROWSKI, The Thaw, [in] idem., Odwilż: Sztuka ok. 1956 r./ The Thaw: Polish Art c. 1956, exhib. cat.,
Poznań, Muzeum Narodowe, 1996, pp. 243-59; idem., Modernism and Socialist Culture: Polish Art in the Late 1950s,
[in:] eds. REID and CROWLEY, Style and Socialism, op. cit., pp. 143-5.
325
that Picasso contributed to the same discourse as Fougeron. His participation in the
Wrocław Congress and his official tour round Poland, the gift of his pottery to the National
Museum in Warsaw, as well as a plethora of his emblematic drawings and gestures,
supporting both the communist reconstruction and the return to folk art - were appropriat-
ed by the authorities on the same terms as paintings and speeches by Fougeron, as a bless-
ing on new Poland's cultural politics, conferred this time by the world's 'greatest artist'.
Thus it was Picasso who, on an incomparably larger scale, was entrusted the role of the
standard bearer of the western appreciative gaze. And yet, despite the enormous publicity
given to his 1948 visit, perhaps one of his most resonant appearances in Poland, both in
the role of the Communist warrior and in that of the unrelentless formalist, was the inclu-
sion of his Massacre in Korea the above-mentioned exhibition of French art in Warsaw in
1952. Its very presence both corroborated the validity of interventionist realism in the
service of the Party, as well as undermining, in accordance with to Baudin's thesis, the
rigidity of socialist realist doctrine. Reviews of the exhibition would stress the work's
political content, explaining it as 'an artistic synthesis of the horror of war' (ill. 11). De-
spite the reservations that the painting 'might evoke some doubts in the spectator', who
would be expected to demand some 'less symbolic accusation' - not of some imaginary
murderers, but the accusation of a particular crime, which would turn in a more overt way
against American soldiers - it was the 'deeply ideological' content of the painting which
justified its form. Picasso was 'allowed' to paint in the way he wished.66 The same applied
to Leger and Matisse at the Warsaw exhibition. Soon after that, the mainstream of Polish
critical discourse would assert the need of a 'new realism' in Polish art, which would
derive its strength not from the 'dispirited repetitions', but from 'creative experiments',
pointing westwards, to the 'lessons' of Courbet, Cezanne and Picasso, and would extend
the definition of realism so widely that it would incorporate abstraction as well.
Massacre in Korea made another significant appearance in Poland. In October 1956,
with Picasso's 75th birthday exhibition opening in Moscow, while Soviet tanks were in-
vading Hungary, a large reproduction of the work was displayed in a busy Warsaw Street
(ill. 12).67 In the act of deconstructing the interventionist potential of Picasso's art, the
partisan Polish viewer denounced the artist's political stance, pointing to the proximity
between subversion and submission in politically engaged art. S/he did it, however, from
the modernist positions, newly regained in the direct aftermath of the Thaw, revindicating
the belief of art's holy autonomy.68
Much has been written about the syndrome of post-socialist realist nausea, repressing the
desire for political engagement and legibility, which dominated art historical discourses
that were steering elear of social art history, as it might have evoked associations danger-
ously close to its doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist version of the 1950s.69 One of the major
outcomes of this era was the amnesia of Polish (and East European) art history regarding
the impact of Western Communist art in the post-war period. Those Polish artists and
66 STANISŁAWSKI, Nowe drogi malarstwa francuskiego, op. cit.
67 The photograph, first reproduced by Roland Penrose, has been recently reprinted by G. R. UTLEY, Picasso: The
Communist Years, New Haven, London 2000.
68 See also: MURAWSKA-MUTHESIUS, Paris from Behind the Iron Curtain, op. cit., p. 257.
69 P. PIOTROWSKI, The Thaw, [in] idem., Odwilż: Sztuka ok. 1956 r./ The Thaw: Polish Art c. 1956, exhib. cat.,
Poznań, Muzeum Narodowe, 1996, pp. 243-59; idem., Modernism and Socialist Culture: Polish Art in the Late 1950s,
[in:] eds. REID and CROWLEY, Style and Socialism, op. cit., pp. 143-5.