DOI Artikel:
Podniesińska, Kamila: Między Rodinem a Przybyszewskim: klasycyzm dionizyjski Edwarda Wittiga
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19072#0247
Also his Woman in a Pensive Mood reveals the same source of inspiration; it takes up Rodirfs
famous non finito motif, a figurę emerging from the rough błock of marble in which fragments
of the sculpture are still buried.
The modernistic origin of Wittig's works is testified by their elear leaning towards metaphy-
sical ąuestions, by an attempt to translate into a sculptural language spiritual anxieties, states of
despondency, despair. and ąuestions about the sense of human existence. Seeking the sources
that raay have moulded the artist's imagination, one would have to recall the entire context of the
epoch with its strong misogynic tendencies. In some of Wittig's sculptures we can find obvious
echoes of the philosophies of Stanisław Przybyszewski and Otto Weininger, while other works
betray his fascination with Nietzsche. Inextricably involved in their epoch, they excellently
reflect the overlapping of diverse relations.
Nevertheless, Wittig succeeded in giving his sculptures the stamp of individuality. His
symbolism based on the popular leitmotivs of the epoch was accompanied in the formal aspect
by moderation and an intellectual command of media. This can be very well seen even in the
works which evidently had their origins in the Young Poland movement, such as Destiny, Sphinx,
Challenge orldol, which despite their smali sizes evoke the impression of monumental enclosed
compositional spaces. The tum of 1907 and 1908 witnessed the artisfs growing tendency to
replace his characteristic flowing, free line by the moulding of a sculpture on the basis of precise,
mathematical calculations. This classical, monumental element is perceptible especially in the
ailes of composition, in his consistent search for simplicity, synthesis, compactness of form,
and gentler means of expression. Among the impulses which determined his choice of fonu and
means of expression Adolf Hildebrand's book, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst,
published in 1893, and the pedagogical activity of Antoine Bourdelle, closely linked with the
Polish community in France, were of primary importance, as well as inspirations coming from
Cubist circles.
In 1908 Wittig sculptured Awakening, a work which in terms of stylistic changes constituted
a kind of turning point in his oeuvre, closing the period of Rodin's inspiring influence. Thus
classical monumentality, an element present in the artisfs creations almost from the beginning,
became all-important now. Among his sculptures there appeared forms of ostentatiously heavy
proportions, contoured with a vigorous, graphic line, austere, precisely thought-out. Two scul-
ptures by Wittig can be excellent examples of the above-outlined tendencies, at the same time
closing his Parisian period: Autumn - a compositionally sophisticated seąuence of massed planes,
cylinders, cones, and ellipses, subordinated solely to the properties of materiał - and Eve, whose
massive, sturdy, "Cyclopean" fonu used to be compared to a Cubist composition as well as to
Greek art of the Archaic period.
217
famous non finito motif, a figurę emerging from the rough błock of marble in which fragments
of the sculpture are still buried.
The modernistic origin of Wittig's works is testified by their elear leaning towards metaphy-
sical ąuestions, by an attempt to translate into a sculptural language spiritual anxieties, states of
despondency, despair. and ąuestions about the sense of human existence. Seeking the sources
that raay have moulded the artist's imagination, one would have to recall the entire context of the
epoch with its strong misogynic tendencies. In some of Wittig's sculptures we can find obvious
echoes of the philosophies of Stanisław Przybyszewski and Otto Weininger, while other works
betray his fascination with Nietzsche. Inextricably involved in their epoch, they excellently
reflect the overlapping of diverse relations.
Nevertheless, Wittig succeeded in giving his sculptures the stamp of individuality. His
symbolism based on the popular leitmotivs of the epoch was accompanied in the formal aspect
by moderation and an intellectual command of media. This can be very well seen even in the
works which evidently had their origins in the Young Poland movement, such as Destiny, Sphinx,
Challenge orldol, which despite their smali sizes evoke the impression of monumental enclosed
compositional spaces. The tum of 1907 and 1908 witnessed the artisfs growing tendency to
replace his characteristic flowing, free line by the moulding of a sculpture on the basis of precise,
mathematical calculations. This classical, monumental element is perceptible especially in the
ailes of composition, in his consistent search for simplicity, synthesis, compactness of form,
and gentler means of expression. Among the impulses which determined his choice of fonu and
means of expression Adolf Hildebrand's book, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst,
published in 1893, and the pedagogical activity of Antoine Bourdelle, closely linked with the
Polish community in France, were of primary importance, as well as inspirations coming from
Cubist circles.
In 1908 Wittig sculptured Awakening, a work which in terms of stylistic changes constituted
a kind of turning point in his oeuvre, closing the period of Rodin's inspiring influence. Thus
classical monumentality, an element present in the artisfs creations almost from the beginning,
became all-important now. Among his sculptures there appeared forms of ostentatiously heavy
proportions, contoured with a vigorous, graphic line, austere, precisely thought-out. Two scul-
ptures by Wittig can be excellent examples of the above-outlined tendencies, at the same time
closing his Parisian period: Autumn - a compositionally sophisticated seąuence of massed planes,
cylinders, cones, and ellipses, subordinated solely to the properties of materiał - and Eve, whose
massive, sturdy, "Cyclopean" fonu used to be compared to a Cubist composition as well as to
Greek art of the Archaic period.
217