DOI Artikel:
Raczek, Marta: Polski symbolizm - o dwóch zagadnieniach z dziedziny recepcji
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19071#0116
period 1860-1880 from that in PodkowińskTs time was less emphasis on "the continuation
of a story" and more on the characters' inner experiences, irrespective of whether these
were people, animals or monsters. It was exactly this interpretation of the feelings and
desires of the characters depicted on canvas that directly linked together descriptions of
the experiences of Moreaifs Salome, Burne-Jones's Arthurian ghosts and Podkowiński's
lustful woman. The contemporary style of reception of the works of art associated with
Symbolism was characterized by the avoidance of any technical remarks which might
diminish the poetic ąuality of the text. Any comments on the formal aspects of a picture,
if they appeared at all, turned into poems - impressions of the atmosphere created by a
painter in his works. It is likewise characteristic that the theses formulated on the basis
of literary analysis were transferred to the visual arts. At the same time those critics who
wrote so poetically about Symbolist paintings, in their articles devoted to Impressionism
went on at length about form. almost totally omitting a literary description of the scenes
depicted on canvas.
When viewed from this perspective, the essence of Symbolism seemed to be the com-
munication of an idea by means of available artistic, even purely academic. media, while
it was a critic's task to find in the painting a reflection of this idea and to create its verbal
equivalent. As a matter of fact, this attitude was very close to the theoretical postulates ad-
dressed to art critics by Albert Aurier. seeking "an aristocrat of the spirit". a critic-poet who
would not be obliged, like a chronicler, to assess what was good or bad in art. but whose
task would be to appraise the rangę of the revealing power of art in the experience of tran-
scendence. The chief principle of Aurier s critical method was to make a critiąue resemble
poetry. This was manifested above all in the very description of a work of art. which was
expected to perfectly reproduce the idea contained in the painting by means of linguistic
formulas. A critiąue resembling a poem may have held a particular attraction for Polish art
critics: on the one hand due to obvious relations that as men of letters they had with poetry
and on the other because of a purely external similarity between this model and the method
used in Polish art criticism, the same that was opposed by Stanisław Witkiewicz. It should
be emphasized that while in Matejko's time "short stories" on paintings predominated, in
the 1890s the texts were more akin to poems.
To sum up, it might be concluded that the Polish art critics describing the "Polish
Symbolism" drew their theories from French theorists' publications (this concerns both the
theory of Symbolist poetry and that of Symbolist painting as described by Albert Aurier);
however, disceming that Polish art differed from French models, they rather compared it
with Pre-Raphaelitism, especially in Bume-Jones's version, and with Gennan Symbolist
paintings, by Klinger and Bocklin in particular, which were indeed a source of inspiration
for Polish artists. In the reception model itself a search for the continuation of events in a
painting was abandoned. The literary style of reception ceased to resemble that of a short
story or a novel, but turned into a poetic style in which it was not the action but the mood,
feelings, and experiences of particular characters that counted, including the lyrical subject
- freąuently the painter himself.
The style of reception developed by Polish art critics, in which French theories min-
gled with the inspiration drawn from canvases by Bocklin and Moreau and which was
perpetuated in their texts, determined the way of appraising numerous paintings created at
the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries for many years to come.
102
of a story" and more on the characters' inner experiences, irrespective of whether these
were people, animals or monsters. It was exactly this interpretation of the feelings and
desires of the characters depicted on canvas that directly linked together descriptions of
the experiences of Moreaifs Salome, Burne-Jones's Arthurian ghosts and Podkowiński's
lustful woman. The contemporary style of reception of the works of art associated with
Symbolism was characterized by the avoidance of any technical remarks which might
diminish the poetic ąuality of the text. Any comments on the formal aspects of a picture,
if they appeared at all, turned into poems - impressions of the atmosphere created by a
painter in his works. It is likewise characteristic that the theses formulated on the basis
of literary analysis were transferred to the visual arts. At the same time those critics who
wrote so poetically about Symbolist paintings, in their articles devoted to Impressionism
went on at length about form. almost totally omitting a literary description of the scenes
depicted on canvas.
When viewed from this perspective, the essence of Symbolism seemed to be the com-
munication of an idea by means of available artistic, even purely academic. media, while
it was a critic's task to find in the painting a reflection of this idea and to create its verbal
equivalent. As a matter of fact, this attitude was very close to the theoretical postulates ad-
dressed to art critics by Albert Aurier. seeking "an aristocrat of the spirit". a critic-poet who
would not be obliged, like a chronicler, to assess what was good or bad in art. but whose
task would be to appraise the rangę of the revealing power of art in the experience of tran-
scendence. The chief principle of Aurier s critical method was to make a critiąue resemble
poetry. This was manifested above all in the very description of a work of art. which was
expected to perfectly reproduce the idea contained in the painting by means of linguistic
formulas. A critiąue resembling a poem may have held a particular attraction for Polish art
critics: on the one hand due to obvious relations that as men of letters they had with poetry
and on the other because of a purely external similarity between this model and the method
used in Polish art criticism, the same that was opposed by Stanisław Witkiewicz. It should
be emphasized that while in Matejko's time "short stories" on paintings predominated, in
the 1890s the texts were more akin to poems.
To sum up, it might be concluded that the Polish art critics describing the "Polish
Symbolism" drew their theories from French theorists' publications (this concerns both the
theory of Symbolist poetry and that of Symbolist painting as described by Albert Aurier);
however, disceming that Polish art differed from French models, they rather compared it
with Pre-Raphaelitism, especially in Bume-Jones's version, and with Gennan Symbolist
paintings, by Klinger and Bocklin in particular, which were indeed a source of inspiration
for Polish artists. In the reception model itself a search for the continuation of events in a
painting was abandoned. The literary style of reception ceased to resemble that of a short
story or a novel, but turned into a poetic style in which it was not the action but the mood,
feelings, and experiences of particular characters that counted, including the lyrical subject
- freąuently the painter himself.
The style of reception developed by Polish art critics, in which French theories min-
gled with the inspiration drawn from canvases by Bocklin and Moreau and which was
perpetuated in their texts, determined the way of appraising numerous paintings created at
the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries for many years to come.
102