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DOI Artikel:Jakimowicz, Irena: Metaphor and Realism: Witkacy's Late Works in the National Museum's Collection. 1984 Acquisitions
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18901#0100
Witkacy might have picked up the tendency under the influence of his contact with Broni-
sław Wojciech Linke, who was younger than himself, in the mid 1930s. He wrote about Linke
with admiration in 1936: „He sees with a clairvoyant’s eye the whole horror of our times: insane
mankind fighting against its own insanity by putting a strangling grip on its own throat as
if it were the worst enemy... On top of this, his vision of things of this world seems infernal
in its hyperrealism so that one who has looked through this lynkeioscope ... perceives the real
world as flat, not quite three-dimensional, pale, insipid, and peaceful, like chicken ragout after
diabolic astral beefsteaks that Beelzebub himself has seasoned with self-made mustard and
sauce. Every pebble in the pavement, every cog-wheel in these super-machines born from
peyotl visions, every grain of matter are wrought with the utmost precision, with an almost
satanic predilection for the represented matter and for painting materials...”3
If Witkacy had indeed picked up this thread under the influence of Linke’s painting, he did
it in his own, somewhat perverse manner. The portrait in question is exceptional in its category.
The couple portrayed, apparently so palpably real, are, in fact, somehow unreal. Though dear
to each other, they remain in no contact. Their large eyes, which appear more bulging than
they are because of the sharp sparkles they send, seem absent. The young couple are isolated from
their natural surroundings not only because of the evening dress they wear despite its being
their summer holiday in Zakopane and not because the landscape has nothing in common in
Zakopane. Witkacy transplanted his models into an alien iconographie and painterly reality.
The matter-of-fact rendering of the figures is in contrast to the fantastic landscape motifs and
their treatment which is sensual, sketchy and awe-inspiring. Behind the backs of the couple,
we see a broad blue river bend, a sandy beach, and a steep escarpment densely packed with
ruins. The sky is enveloped in the heavy smoke they send out. The message is clear enough to
those aware that the sitters lived in Warsaw. The contrast betwen the two realities, which
would have found no favour with Leon Chwistek, Witkacy’s friend and „theoretical enemy”,
enhances the unearthly quality of the painting, the prophetic expression of the vision on the
eve of a cataclysm that took Jan Gadomski from among the living, and in which Witkacy was
likewise soon to perish.
Translated by Joanna Holzman
3. S.I. Witkiewicz, „Hut ab, meine Herren — ein Genie! Rzecz o twórczości malarskiej Bronisława Linkego” (Hats off-
Gentlemen. A Genius! On Bronisław Linke’s Painting). Tygodnik Ilustrowany, 1936, I, No. 8-9, after S.I. Witkiewicz, O zna-
czeniu filozofii dla krytyki i inne artykuły polemiczne (How Significant Is Philosophy to Critique and Other Polemic Articles)
Warszawa, 1976, p. 206-207
86
sław Wojciech Linke, who was younger than himself, in the mid 1930s. He wrote about Linke
with admiration in 1936: „He sees with a clairvoyant’s eye the whole horror of our times: insane
mankind fighting against its own insanity by putting a strangling grip on its own throat as
if it were the worst enemy... On top of this, his vision of things of this world seems infernal
in its hyperrealism so that one who has looked through this lynkeioscope ... perceives the real
world as flat, not quite three-dimensional, pale, insipid, and peaceful, like chicken ragout after
diabolic astral beefsteaks that Beelzebub himself has seasoned with self-made mustard and
sauce. Every pebble in the pavement, every cog-wheel in these super-machines born from
peyotl visions, every grain of matter are wrought with the utmost precision, with an almost
satanic predilection for the represented matter and for painting materials...”3
If Witkacy had indeed picked up this thread under the influence of Linke’s painting, he did
it in his own, somewhat perverse manner. The portrait in question is exceptional in its category.
The couple portrayed, apparently so palpably real, are, in fact, somehow unreal. Though dear
to each other, they remain in no contact. Their large eyes, which appear more bulging than
they are because of the sharp sparkles they send, seem absent. The young couple are isolated from
their natural surroundings not only because of the evening dress they wear despite its being
their summer holiday in Zakopane and not because the landscape has nothing in common in
Zakopane. Witkacy transplanted his models into an alien iconographie and painterly reality.
The matter-of-fact rendering of the figures is in contrast to the fantastic landscape motifs and
their treatment which is sensual, sketchy and awe-inspiring. Behind the backs of the couple,
we see a broad blue river bend, a sandy beach, and a steep escarpment densely packed with
ruins. The sky is enveloped in the heavy smoke they send out. The message is clear enough to
those aware that the sitters lived in Warsaw. The contrast betwen the two realities, which
would have found no favour with Leon Chwistek, Witkacy’s friend and „theoretical enemy”,
enhances the unearthly quality of the painting, the prophetic expression of the vision on the
eve of a cataclysm that took Jan Gadomski from among the living, and in which Witkacy was
likewise soon to perish.
Translated by Joanna Holzman
3. S.I. Witkiewicz, „Hut ab, meine Herren — ein Genie! Rzecz o twórczości malarskiej Bronisława Linkego” (Hats off-
Gentlemen. A Genius! On Bronisław Linke’s Painting). Tygodnik Ilustrowany, 1936, I, No. 8-9, after S.I. Witkiewicz, O zna-
czeniu filozofii dla krytyki i inne artykuły polemiczne (How Significant Is Philosophy to Critique and Other Polemic Articles)
Warszawa, 1976, p. 206-207
86