DOI Artikel:
Getka-Kenig, Mikołaj: Wystawy sztuk pięknych w Warszawie jako narzędzie polityki artystycznej władz Królestwa Polskiego w latach 1815 – 1830
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44936#0081
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in Kozakiewicz s narration as enlightened and far-sighted
gentlemen whose actions were in keeping with the pro-
gressive spirit of the time and closely related to the ad-
vances in the economic situation (implicitly, in this way
accelerating the dialectic development of Polish culture,
from feudalism to capitalism and then to socialism). The
present article, however, shows that the problem of the
motivations of the government of the Polish Kingdom be-
hind its initiative and the issue of patronage of the Warsaw
exhibitions may be problematised still further, if we ask
not about the aim of the exhibitions (a question already
answered by Kozakiewicz), but about the aim of promot-
ing art in that particular place and time (and who benefit-
ed from that), and furthermore, about the purpose of pro-
moting art using such an idiosyncratic tool as exhibitions
(assuming that the authorities were not allowed to foster
or, for that matter, initiate such activities on a honorary
basis, but, above all, had to take into account the well-be-
ing of the ‘resurrected’ state and the welfare of the society
seen from this point of view). By setting the organisation
of the exhibitions (e.g. the composition of the juries and
their decisions) and the contemporary critical discourse
dealing with them (legal acts and critical reviews) in their
specific political and socio-cultural context, the present
author was able to put forward a claim that the démoc-
ratisation of the access to art by means of public exhibi-
tions was in the service of the conservative agenda of the
governments spearheads of a progress of civilisation, and
was intended to keep the democratic changes under con-
trol. The academic ideal of art, whose promotion was the
aim of the exhibitions, may be interpreted as a sui generis
instrument of symbolic control over the society which, as
a result of unavoidable reforms (introduced for political
reasons) acquired more freedom in the public sphere. The
exhibitions can be seen as a sign of an increase in the self-
appreciation of the then nascent public opinion but also
as an instrument of constraining it within the limits of
the, after all still conservative, social order.
in Kozakiewicz s narration as enlightened and far-sighted
gentlemen whose actions were in keeping with the pro-
gressive spirit of the time and closely related to the ad-
vances in the economic situation (implicitly, in this way
accelerating the dialectic development of Polish culture,
from feudalism to capitalism and then to socialism). The
present article, however, shows that the problem of the
motivations of the government of the Polish Kingdom be-
hind its initiative and the issue of patronage of the Warsaw
exhibitions may be problematised still further, if we ask
not about the aim of the exhibitions (a question already
answered by Kozakiewicz), but about the aim of promot-
ing art in that particular place and time (and who benefit-
ed from that), and furthermore, about the purpose of pro-
moting art using such an idiosyncratic tool as exhibitions
(assuming that the authorities were not allowed to foster
or, for that matter, initiate such activities on a honorary
basis, but, above all, had to take into account the well-be-
ing of the ‘resurrected’ state and the welfare of the society
seen from this point of view). By setting the organisation
of the exhibitions (e.g. the composition of the juries and
their decisions) and the contemporary critical discourse
dealing with them (legal acts and critical reviews) in their
specific political and socio-cultural context, the present
author was able to put forward a claim that the démoc-
ratisation of the access to art by means of public exhibi-
tions was in the service of the conservative agenda of the
governments spearheads of a progress of civilisation, and
was intended to keep the democratic changes under con-
trol. The academic ideal of art, whose promotion was the
aim of the exhibitions, may be interpreted as a sui generis
instrument of symbolic control over the society which, as
a result of unavoidable reforms (introduced for political
reasons) acquired more freedom in the public sphere. The
exhibitions can be seen as a sign of an increase in the self-
appreciation of the then nascent public opinion but also
as an instrument of constraining it within the limits of
the, after all still conservative, social order.