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DOI Artikel:Luba, Iwona: Malarstwo monumentalne II Rzeczypospolitej: =
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.35032#0522
512
ÎWONA LUBA
P^pM^Pc
In the initial stages of the Second Republic's
existence, the situation of monumental painting,
understood as the carrying out of mural paintings with
a large format intended as permanent decoration for
major public buildings presented itself in an almost
dramatic way. The times of prolonged partition had
mied out much opportunity for the development of a
tradition in composing monumental art, while the
absence of commissions, as well as the absence of
mural painting in the process of an artist's formal
preparation, led to this form of art being far less highly
appreciated than easel painting.
During the 1920s paintings of monumental
proportions thus arose in techniques not suited to
mural but rather easel painting: in oils or tempera on
canvas or hardboard (e.g.: Ludomir Slendzinski's
Po/oum of 1923 in the Council of Ministers,
Warsaw). Subject matter was expressed by means of
allegory. Works of this kind served not infrequently
wholly as an imposing form of interior decoration
devoid of ambitious content. The techniques of
frescoes (Auou yrexco),yhexco <2 .secco and tempera
applied to the wall, encaustic painting, mosaic,
sodium silicate and sgrq/)%o was gradually
introduced from the first half of the 1930s, when the
formal education of artists had made up for its
previous failings in relation to teaching the
techniques of mural painting. Signals had already
reached Poland of the 'great career' being made in
the same art principally in Italy, where artists with
the aid of architects had conducted a campaign in
the media favouring its renaissance; demanding at
the same time that the State should be the principle
patron of commissions for groups of murals and the
required legal provisions.
fn inter-war Poland, compared to the Third
Reich, fascist Italy, the USSR, France and the USA,
a flourishing of monumental painting was most
eagerly desired by the artists themselves, but only in
the smallest degree by the state authorities, which
preferred other, considerably less expensive art
forms for state propaganda, such as that of a literary
content, by means of the pro-Sazmc/a regime press
campaign conducted throughout much of the period.
It was for this reason that the only piece of
monumental painting to be carried out in a state
adminstrative building were Felicjan Szczęsny
Kowarski's four plafonds from 1936, in connection
with the adaptation of the former Brühl Palace in
Warsaw to serve as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While banks and private companies became
important investors, the role of institutionalised
patron of monumental art in the //Æzeczpoxpo/üa was
played by the army, but equally the Chief Inspectorate
of Defences (Józef Horyd, Officers' Casino in Vilna,
1932; Bolesław Cybis, Jan Zamoyski, Æo/asVaw
CAroA/y eytaA/AAAzg tAe [Polish] Aorr/er a/oug rAe
[sie/], 1934-'7).
In terms of form and ideological content, the
most significant Polish work of the monumental kind
during the inter-war period arose beyond the state's
political borders in the Free City of Danzig
(Gdańsk); the Polish Secondary School, which,
carried out in the years 1938-9 by Zamoyski and
Cybis, in an atmosphere of inevitable war with the
German Reich a mural titled 'Polish heaven', in
which they sought to convince all beholders that the
city had belonged to Poland since time immemorial.
The final year of the Second Republic's
existence also brought in its wake attempts on the
part of state institutions to take advantage of the
potential of visual expression to convey state
ideology by means of monumental painting, and thus
the creation of suitable conditions for the
development of this form of graphic expression and
representation. In the State Institute of Art
Propaganda the Section of Monument Art of the
Programme Department the said institute was set up
in 1938 with its ambitious intentions to support such
development in visual art of gigantic proportions.
The fate of these state-orientated ambitions was
sealed by the outbreak of the Second World War.
7/vzu.s'Azü?<7 Ay tAe
ÎWONA LUBA
P^pM^Pc
In the initial stages of the Second Republic's
existence, the situation of monumental painting,
understood as the carrying out of mural paintings with
a large format intended as permanent decoration for
major public buildings presented itself in an almost
dramatic way. The times of prolonged partition had
mied out much opportunity for the development of a
tradition in composing monumental art, while the
absence of commissions, as well as the absence of
mural painting in the process of an artist's formal
preparation, led to this form of art being far less highly
appreciated than easel painting.
During the 1920s paintings of monumental
proportions thus arose in techniques not suited to
mural but rather easel painting: in oils or tempera on
canvas or hardboard (e.g.: Ludomir Slendzinski's
Po/oum of 1923 in the Council of Ministers,
Warsaw). Subject matter was expressed by means of
allegory. Works of this kind served not infrequently
wholly as an imposing form of interior decoration
devoid of ambitious content. The techniques of
frescoes (Auou yrexco),yhexco <2 .secco and tempera
applied to the wall, encaustic painting, mosaic,
sodium silicate and sgrq/)%o was gradually
introduced from the first half of the 1930s, when the
formal education of artists had made up for its
previous failings in relation to teaching the
techniques of mural painting. Signals had already
reached Poland of the 'great career' being made in
the same art principally in Italy, where artists with
the aid of architects had conducted a campaign in
the media favouring its renaissance; demanding at
the same time that the State should be the principle
patron of commissions for groups of murals and the
required legal provisions.
fn inter-war Poland, compared to the Third
Reich, fascist Italy, the USSR, France and the USA,
a flourishing of monumental painting was most
eagerly desired by the artists themselves, but only in
the smallest degree by the state authorities, which
preferred other, considerably less expensive art
forms for state propaganda, such as that of a literary
content, by means of the pro-Sazmc/a regime press
campaign conducted throughout much of the period.
It was for this reason that the only piece of
monumental painting to be carried out in a state
adminstrative building were Felicjan Szczęsny
Kowarski's four plafonds from 1936, in connection
with the adaptation of the former Brühl Palace in
Warsaw to serve as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While banks and private companies became
important investors, the role of institutionalised
patron of monumental art in the //Æzeczpoxpo/üa was
played by the army, but equally the Chief Inspectorate
of Defences (Józef Horyd, Officers' Casino in Vilna,
1932; Bolesław Cybis, Jan Zamoyski, Æo/asVaw
CAroA/y eytaA/AAAzg tAe [Polish] Aorr/er a/oug rAe
[sie/], 1934-'7).
In terms of form and ideological content, the
most significant Polish work of the monumental kind
during the inter-war period arose beyond the state's
political borders in the Free City of Danzig
(Gdańsk); the Polish Secondary School, which,
carried out in the years 1938-9 by Zamoyski and
Cybis, in an atmosphere of inevitable war with the
German Reich a mural titled 'Polish heaven', in
which they sought to convince all beholders that the
city had belonged to Poland since time immemorial.
The final year of the Second Republic's
existence also brought in its wake attempts on the
part of state institutions to take advantage of the
potential of visual expression to convey state
ideology by means of monumental painting, and thus
the creation of suitable conditions for the
development of this form of graphic expression and
representation. In the State Institute of Art
Propaganda the Section of Monument Art of the
Programme Department the said institute was set up
in 1938 with its ambitious intentions to support such
development in visual art of gigantic proportions.
The fate of these state-orientated ambitions was
sealed by the outbreak of the Second World War.
7/vzu.s'Azü?<7 Ay tAe