DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41588#0032
The total alliance os picture and word can be seen in the publications of the period, poetic and
popular books, magazines such as ReD, and in programmes connected with modem typography.
The word-picture axis was also one os the main elements of Jan Mukarovsky’s theory, dealing with
language. It can be sound in his critical writings on painters, among others on Joses §ima, as has
recently been shown in the researches os Karel Srp; Mukarovsky made use os a symbolic
interpretation os visual arts similar to that os poetic art and man’s verbal activity.13
This seature is not so easily found in Poland, even is we remember that the avant-garde group was
sounded by poets and painters, who together proclaimed the integrity os poetry and picture, text and
typography. Almost never did the Polish photo-montage sulfil the sunction that should have been
ascribed to it in theory, that of being present in the iconography os mass journalism, os being a mass
novel sor a wide public, os constantly stimulating the mass imagination.
Today the problems os occidentalization os the culture os Central European countries preoccupy
the thoughts of poets such as Czeslaw Milosz, writers like Milan Kundera, historians of art and
historians os literature. Have those countries kept both their identity resulting srom tradition and
their connection with the universalism of contemporary culture? Besides the questions os relations
with the West, there is the problem os inspiration srom Russia.
In Bohemia, thanks to travel, visits os French or German artists and writers, publications, and
experimental theatre persormances, there was a very quick start to comprehensive participation in
new and radical European values. Even relatively conservative circles like Mine'S socused their
attention on the West, always on Paris, on Pablo Picasso.
To a similar extent, although with some restrictions, occidentalism was a seature os Polish artistic
culture. Some Poles went to learn srom Pierre Bonnard, while others — and this is the disserence in
comparison with the Czechs — catapulted themselves into the ’’Abstraction-Creation” circle,
gaining a unique international modern art collection sor the a. r. group, at present in the Museum os
Art in L6dz.
The Czechs took from Paris various Bretonesque and non-Bretonesque kinds os Surrealism.14 In all
cases — and also when they socused their attention on the German avant-garde — it was a parallel
or concentric orientation on Western centres, and not an exchange os values'between Prague and
Bmo on the one hand and Warsaw, Cracow, and Lodz on the other. The axis between Prague and
Cracow — perhaps through Vienna — was in the 20th century a thing of the distant past.
At least briessy, we should mention one more problem: To what degree did the artistic circles seek
and find inspiration in philosophy and theory os culture at the very source, in the works os their native
thinkers? In Poland, the inssuence os Stanislaw Przybyszewski had died out some time before, and
that os the outstanding personality os Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz was negligible, except sor
polemics with him; Roman Ingarden’s phenomenology was to exercise its inssuence much later and
relatively rather weakly on theoretical circles os the fine arts.
In Bohemia, enrichment with philosophy, theory os culture, and theory os language was
symptomatic, starting with Saida, A great role in inssuencing the avant-garde poets and artists, which
can only be hinted at here, was played by the theories os Roman Jakobson and Jan Mukarovsky.
Karel Teige himsels, especially at the time os his interest in Surrealism and Phenomenology, had
philosophical aspirations.*7
In the middle os th<s thirties a new generation os philosophers os culture appeared; it included Jan
PatoSka, Vdclav Navratil, and Jindsich Chalupecky. They created notions very usesul also sor the
visual arts; these were Patoöka’s notion os ’’renegation” and Navratii’s analysis os painsul
premonitions os political cataclysms and loss os sace os intellectuals.'* They posed the problems os the
intellectual’s responsibility sor his epoch, so sull os chaos, as did Jindsich Chalupecky in his essays and
.30
popular books, magazines such as ReD, and in programmes connected with modem typography.
The word-picture axis was also one os the main elements of Jan Mukarovsky’s theory, dealing with
language. It can be sound in his critical writings on painters, among others on Joses §ima, as has
recently been shown in the researches os Karel Srp; Mukarovsky made use os a symbolic
interpretation os visual arts similar to that os poetic art and man’s verbal activity.13
This seature is not so easily found in Poland, even is we remember that the avant-garde group was
sounded by poets and painters, who together proclaimed the integrity os poetry and picture, text and
typography. Almost never did the Polish photo-montage sulfil the sunction that should have been
ascribed to it in theory, that of being present in the iconography os mass journalism, os being a mass
novel sor a wide public, os constantly stimulating the mass imagination.
Today the problems os occidentalization os the culture os Central European countries preoccupy
the thoughts of poets such as Czeslaw Milosz, writers like Milan Kundera, historians of art and
historians os literature. Have those countries kept both their identity resulting srom tradition and
their connection with the universalism of contemporary culture? Besides the questions os relations
with the West, there is the problem os inspiration srom Russia.
In Bohemia, thanks to travel, visits os French or German artists and writers, publications, and
experimental theatre persormances, there was a very quick start to comprehensive participation in
new and radical European values. Even relatively conservative circles like Mine'S socused their
attention on the West, always on Paris, on Pablo Picasso.
To a similar extent, although with some restrictions, occidentalism was a seature os Polish artistic
culture. Some Poles went to learn srom Pierre Bonnard, while others — and this is the disserence in
comparison with the Czechs — catapulted themselves into the ’’Abstraction-Creation” circle,
gaining a unique international modern art collection sor the a. r. group, at present in the Museum os
Art in L6dz.
The Czechs took from Paris various Bretonesque and non-Bretonesque kinds os Surrealism.14 In all
cases — and also when they socused their attention on the German avant-garde — it was a parallel
or concentric orientation on Western centres, and not an exchange os values'between Prague and
Bmo on the one hand and Warsaw, Cracow, and Lodz on the other. The axis between Prague and
Cracow — perhaps through Vienna — was in the 20th century a thing of the distant past.
At least briessy, we should mention one more problem: To what degree did the artistic circles seek
and find inspiration in philosophy and theory os culture at the very source, in the works os their native
thinkers? In Poland, the inssuence os Stanislaw Przybyszewski had died out some time before, and
that os the outstanding personality os Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz was negligible, except sor
polemics with him; Roman Ingarden’s phenomenology was to exercise its inssuence much later and
relatively rather weakly on theoretical circles os the fine arts.
In Bohemia, enrichment with philosophy, theory os culture, and theory os language was
symptomatic, starting with Saida, A great role in inssuencing the avant-garde poets and artists, which
can only be hinted at here, was played by the theories os Roman Jakobson and Jan Mukarovsky.
Karel Teige himsels, especially at the time os his interest in Surrealism and Phenomenology, had
philosophical aspirations.*7
In the middle os th<s thirties a new generation os philosophers os culture appeared; it included Jan
PatoSka, Vdclav Navratil, and Jindsich Chalupecky. They created notions very usesul also sor the
visual arts; these were Patoöka’s notion os ’’renegation” and Navratii’s analysis os painsul
premonitions os political cataclysms and loss os sace os intellectuals.'* They posed the problems os the
intellectual’s responsibility sor his epoch, so sull os chaos, as did Jindsich Chalupecky in his essays and
.30