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DOI Artikel:Zagrodzki, Janusz: On the Question of Constructivism, [2]: Painting with Light
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18944#0124
Janusz Zagrodzki
On the Ouestion
of Constructivism
II. Painting with Light
The Polish avant~garde developed a specific formal tradition, although its
achievements have all too often been eąuated with Constructivism. An analysis
of the predominant artistic attitudes of the time reveals that much morę was
happening than such a superficial interpretation would suggest. In their work
artists arrived at new geometrie configurations (cf the work of Strzemiński,
which was discussed in the previous article in this series) and referred to organie
forms with equal freąuency. It is no coincidence that Mieczysław Szczuka
referred to his photomontages as “sculptural poetry”, attempting to encapsulate
in them a synthesis of the life of a creative mdividual. At the same time he
considered the leading tenets of Functionalism to be expressed in garden cities,
in which the complex structures of the houses co-exist with the surrounding
naturę. A correlation between the geometrical arrangement of planes and the
spaces they intersect was similarly the chief principle governing Katarzyna
Kobro’s sculptural structures. These were structures based on the most natural,
indeed nature-derived, system of harmonie proportion, the so-called golden
section, also referred to as the “formula of life”. Likewise, the relationship
between individual particles of matter and their abstract existence is very elear
in Władysław Strzemińskim Unism: both in his paintings and his theoretical
statements. Despite the fact that ałl these artists followed the inviolable rule
according to which elements of the real world had to be arranged in a coherent
system, it is open to debate whether such a construction system can be termed
Constructivism. The play of form with animate and inanimate matter took on
a metaphysical dimension, which became the most significant feature of the so-
called Polish Constructivism, bringing these artists closer to another great
metaphysician, Kasimir Malevich, an artist of Polish extraction.
In the early 193Os the artist Karol Hiller encountered this wide rangę of
attitudes being expressed by the avant-garded Hiller had spent over ten years 1
1 Karol Hiller was born on 19 December 1891 in Łódź. In 1910-12 he studied chemistry at the
Technische Hohschule in Darmstadt, and in 1912-16 he studied structural engineering at the
66
On the Ouestion
of Constructivism
II. Painting with Light
The Polish avant~garde developed a specific formal tradition, although its
achievements have all too often been eąuated with Constructivism. An analysis
of the predominant artistic attitudes of the time reveals that much morę was
happening than such a superficial interpretation would suggest. In their work
artists arrived at new geometrie configurations (cf the work of Strzemiński,
which was discussed in the previous article in this series) and referred to organie
forms with equal freąuency. It is no coincidence that Mieczysław Szczuka
referred to his photomontages as “sculptural poetry”, attempting to encapsulate
in them a synthesis of the life of a creative mdividual. At the same time he
considered the leading tenets of Functionalism to be expressed in garden cities,
in which the complex structures of the houses co-exist with the surrounding
naturę. A correlation between the geometrical arrangement of planes and the
spaces they intersect was similarly the chief principle governing Katarzyna
Kobro’s sculptural structures. These were structures based on the most natural,
indeed nature-derived, system of harmonie proportion, the so-called golden
section, also referred to as the “formula of life”. Likewise, the relationship
between individual particles of matter and their abstract existence is very elear
in Władysław Strzemińskim Unism: both in his paintings and his theoretical
statements. Despite the fact that ałl these artists followed the inviolable rule
according to which elements of the real world had to be arranged in a coherent
system, it is open to debate whether such a construction system can be termed
Constructivism. The play of form with animate and inanimate matter took on
a metaphysical dimension, which became the most significant feature of the so-
called Polish Constructivism, bringing these artists closer to another great
metaphysician, Kasimir Malevich, an artist of Polish extraction.
In the early 193Os the artist Karol Hiller encountered this wide rangę of
attitudes being expressed by the avant-garded Hiller had spent over ten years 1
1 Karol Hiller was born on 19 December 1891 in Łódź. In 1910-12 he studied chemistry at the
Technische Hohschule in Darmstadt, and in 1912-16 he studied structural engineering at the
66