DOI issue:
Nr. 1-2
DOI article:Zagrodzki, Janusz: On the Question of Constructivism, [1]: Meditations on Colour
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18944#0053
intuitive!y, owe their finał expression to colour particles making up the texture; particles
which are applied in such a way as to create an assymetric balance.
The last period in Strzemińskim art prior to the outbreak of World War II also found
a reflection in his writings. Seascapes are “the mutual interaction of colours [...], modula-
tion of the warm and cool colour scales existing together in a painting [...], composition of
green and blue juxtaposed in appropńately harmonious proportions and in the right
shape, [...] The waves and the elaborate shoreline are linked by looking from one to the
other, thereby creating a linę with a rhythm common to both of them.”25 26
The “afterimages” The Sun Seen Directly and The Sun - Heartofthe Day (Figs on co-
ver) created between 1948 and 1949, were the result of experiments with the structure of
sunlight conducted through the eye of the artist. These experiments defined “[...] the abi-
lity of the retina to storę elements of forms. The greater the contrast, the longer and the
morę clearly it is preserved in our memory [...] The retina reacts to colour and carries it in
unchanged form or as a complementary colour [...] it carries form just as well as colour.”27
“Afterimages” represent the crowning of Strzemińskim search for pure painting. It is
of no practical importance whether they are seen to be analytical or metaphorical. What
is important is that they are the work of an artist wishing to preserve the touch of the
brush, the shape of a colour patch, the ostentatious manifesting of microstructure and
emphasis on the painting quality of the picture.
His ambition at the same time was for the colour not to be “coarse”, but filtered
through the artisfs personality. He dreamed to combine the opposities and wanted co-
lour to grow into the canvas to give it uniform tension, but never gave up spatial relation-
ships; the colour texture was supposed to serve both tasks.28
His dream of pure art as something resembling a visual sound, was the most impor-
tant part of Strzemińskim quest. His aesthetic conscience, which was manifested some-
times in his search for pure matter and sometimes in the ideał of original simplicity, even
though pure matter was to remain forever an illusion, the fruit of abstraction, was the dee-
pest expression of his art. If the dream about pure painting matter, in spite of the utopia
contained within it, could gain historical significance, this should be attributed to the gra-
dual moving away from the real and unequivocal to the ethereal and the spiritual. The
longing for pure matter - pure art - thus became a metaphysical demand.
The aesthetics which conceive plastic form as the essence of a work, as a spiritual
process stamped in the materiał, gradually takes on new meanings and content. Pure
painting could find the aesthetic justification for its existence only as form, but it required
ideological justification, being as it was separated from any reference to reality. The point
of departure was a reflection on the naturę of form, the energy of colour contained in the
materiał, the shaping of sensations. Assuming content in Strzemińskim art is contained
in form, the definition of form as content simply means that form is the source of sensa-
tions, earlier defined by aeshetics as content. The artisfs sensations conveyed in pain-
ting become form. Form evokes, awakens and attracts keywords and eventually ideas
- it bears content. Painting can be a process of abstraction leading to the gradual trans-
formation of content; reduced to itself, it gains metaphysical status.
Translated by Wanda Kemp-Welch
25. The quote combines Strzemińskim remarks from the following: “Komentarz do obrazu ”,Forma, 1935, no 3;
“Surogaty sztuki”, Budowa, 1931, no. 1.
26. Strzemiński gives the titles of the paintings now in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw in a letter to
Nora and Jan Szczepański, Aug. lOth, 1949.
27. W. Strzemiński, Sztuka nowoczesna a szkoły..., op. cit.
28. This paragraph is a paraphrase of M. Rzepińska’s text in which she defined the basie tenets of Colourism in al-
most the same way.
51
which are applied in such a way as to create an assymetric balance.
The last period in Strzemińskim art prior to the outbreak of World War II also found
a reflection in his writings. Seascapes are “the mutual interaction of colours [...], modula-
tion of the warm and cool colour scales existing together in a painting [...], composition of
green and blue juxtaposed in appropńately harmonious proportions and in the right
shape, [...] The waves and the elaborate shoreline are linked by looking from one to the
other, thereby creating a linę with a rhythm common to both of them.”25 26
The “afterimages” The Sun Seen Directly and The Sun - Heartofthe Day (Figs on co-
ver) created between 1948 and 1949, were the result of experiments with the structure of
sunlight conducted through the eye of the artist. These experiments defined “[...] the abi-
lity of the retina to storę elements of forms. The greater the contrast, the longer and the
morę clearly it is preserved in our memory [...] The retina reacts to colour and carries it in
unchanged form or as a complementary colour [...] it carries form just as well as colour.”27
“Afterimages” represent the crowning of Strzemińskim search for pure painting. It is
of no practical importance whether they are seen to be analytical or metaphorical. What
is important is that they are the work of an artist wishing to preserve the touch of the
brush, the shape of a colour patch, the ostentatious manifesting of microstructure and
emphasis on the painting quality of the picture.
His ambition at the same time was for the colour not to be “coarse”, but filtered
through the artisfs personality. He dreamed to combine the opposities and wanted co-
lour to grow into the canvas to give it uniform tension, but never gave up spatial relation-
ships; the colour texture was supposed to serve both tasks.28
His dream of pure art as something resembling a visual sound, was the most impor-
tant part of Strzemińskim quest. His aesthetic conscience, which was manifested some-
times in his search for pure matter and sometimes in the ideał of original simplicity, even
though pure matter was to remain forever an illusion, the fruit of abstraction, was the dee-
pest expression of his art. If the dream about pure painting matter, in spite of the utopia
contained within it, could gain historical significance, this should be attributed to the gra-
dual moving away from the real and unequivocal to the ethereal and the spiritual. The
longing for pure matter - pure art - thus became a metaphysical demand.
The aesthetics which conceive plastic form as the essence of a work, as a spiritual
process stamped in the materiał, gradually takes on new meanings and content. Pure
painting could find the aesthetic justification for its existence only as form, but it required
ideological justification, being as it was separated from any reference to reality. The point
of departure was a reflection on the naturę of form, the energy of colour contained in the
materiał, the shaping of sensations. Assuming content in Strzemińskim art is contained
in form, the definition of form as content simply means that form is the source of sensa-
tions, earlier defined by aeshetics as content. The artisfs sensations conveyed in pain-
ting become form. Form evokes, awakens and attracts keywords and eventually ideas
- it bears content. Painting can be a process of abstraction leading to the gradual trans-
formation of content; reduced to itself, it gains metaphysical status.
Translated by Wanda Kemp-Welch
25. The quote combines Strzemińskim remarks from the following: “Komentarz do obrazu ”,Forma, 1935, no 3;
“Surogaty sztuki”, Budowa, 1931, no. 1.
26. Strzemiński gives the titles of the paintings now in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw in a letter to
Nora and Jan Szczepański, Aug. lOth, 1949.
27. W. Strzemiński, Sztuka nowoczesna a szkoły..., op. cit.
28. This paragraph is a paraphrase of M. Rzepińska’s text in which she defined the basie tenets of Colourism in al-
most the same way.
51