Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (20.1979)

such scholars as Professor Mieczysław Porębski drafted new methods of approach and study11.
An important role in this development has been played by exhibitions. In 1975 a great show was
organized in Warsaw by the National Museum in Cracow entitled Romanticism and Romantic
Spirit in Polish Art, which with some modifications was repeated in Paris in 197612. The intention
was to tracę strong romantic traditions linking the art of the Romantic period with the contem-
porary developments. That exhibition served iconographic studies by presenting works of art,
according to iconographic categories, among them also those concerning such ideas as nation,
freedom, political independence.

The exhibition last to date took place in 1978/79 in the National Museum in Warsaw and this
time its subject was clearly described. It had to show The Polish Road to Independence. How it
was designed and what it included is told by one of its organizers —■ Dr Andrzej Rottermund in
his article which follows.

11. M.Porębski, Malowane dzieje, Warszawa, 1961; the same, Intcrregnum. Studia z historii sztuki polskiej XIX i XX wieku.
Warszawa, 1975.

12. Uespril romanliąuc dans l'art polonais, Paris. 1976.

Andrzej Rottermund

THE "ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE" IN POLISH
ART OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Polish modern painting was born amidst energetic attempts to improve the form of governmeat
undertaken during the reign of king Stanisław August, amidst the drama of the successive
partitions of the country and the political discussions of the Four Years' Diet (1787—91), in
the battlefields of Racławice and Maciejowice and in the strects of Warsaw at the time of the
national insurrection. It developed in the atmoshpere of hope accompanying the Napoleonie
campaign and matured during the fights of the national uprisings. Initially the factor mobilizing
all social forces and involving art in political propaganda was the danger of losing independence ;
later the stimulus was provided by the actual, tragic reality.

Art, like literaturę, fully adopted the romantic notion according to which only a spiritual
effort could save the nation from destmetion and total loss of freedom. Literaturę was granted
control of this world and literaturę established and imposed patterns of though and action.
However, was its power absolute? Was literaturę the only institution to uudertake the task of
"exercising control of the hostile reality" (so Maria Janion and Maria Żmigrodzka)1. If We emp-

1. M. Janion, M. Żmigrodzka, Romantyzm i Historia, Warszawa, 1978, p. 10.

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