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DOI Artikel:Ławniczakowa, Agnieszka: In the Mirror of a Well: On Jacek Malczewski's self-portraits
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18904#0066
20. Jacek Malczewski, Fareioell to atelier, 1913, Bytom, Upper Silesian Museum (Photo. Upper
Silesian Museum, Bytom)
search for an image of completeness, unity47. If this is really the case, the process never ends.
A complete work alienated from its maker must immediately appear incomplete in a sense
because it is limited by the context ereated fot it by other, objcctified products of culture.
Hence the artist continually constructs, evokes and complements his symbol, using images or
motifs of importance to him that have already been shaped. It is especially evident in Mal-
czcwski's art (though not only here), in his series of self-portraits arid motifs that recur through
them, like the poisoned well, native home, metamorphoses of time, Polonia, Tobias's wanderings,
etc. To say that art is autonomous does not exhaust this procedurę despite the apparent simi-
larity. Moreover, it does not apply to self-portraits, especially symbolic ones, which, as I said,
are simultaneous acts of creation and artistic self-creation, and, in their finał aspect, reconstruc-
tions — as complete as possible — of the arfist's worldview. As Gilbert Duran put it, „Symbols
build up the domain of supremę valucs..., open the view of theophany"48. This striving is
apparent in Malczewski's art and accounts for its persisting emotional tension.
The epistemological effort evident in it is at the same time its most essential ethos, branded
with an overwhelming stamp of tragedy, accepted and realised as inevitable.
47. Cf. M. Eliade, op. cif.; and G. Durand, op. cit.
48. G. Durand, op. cit.
56
Silesian Museum, Bytom)
search for an image of completeness, unity47. If this is really the case, the process never ends.
A complete work alienated from its maker must immediately appear incomplete in a sense
because it is limited by the context ereated fot it by other, objcctified products of culture.
Hence the artist continually constructs, evokes and complements his symbol, using images or
motifs of importance to him that have already been shaped. It is especially evident in Mal-
czcwski's art (though not only here), in his series of self-portraits arid motifs that recur through
them, like the poisoned well, native home, metamorphoses of time, Polonia, Tobias's wanderings,
etc. To say that art is autonomous does not exhaust this procedurę despite the apparent simi-
larity. Moreover, it does not apply to self-portraits, especially symbolic ones, which, as I said,
are simultaneous acts of creation and artistic self-creation, and, in their finał aspect, reconstruc-
tions — as complete as possible — of the arfist's worldview. As Gilbert Duran put it, „Symbols
build up the domain of supremę valucs..., open the view of theophany"48. This striving is
apparent in Malczewski's art and accounts for its persisting emotional tension.
The epistemological effort evident in it is at the same time its most essential ethos, branded
with an overwhelming stamp of tragedy, accepted and realised as inevitable.
47. Cf. M. Eliade, op. cif.; and G. Durand, op. cit.
48. G. Durand, op. cit.
56