Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (18.2018)

5. Sasza Blonder, Landscape
with two characters, mixed
technique, Sasza Blonder
Archive 1929-1937, Special
Collections of the Polish
Academy of Sciences,
Warsa w.
6. Sasza Blonder, Landscape
with trees and a church
tower, mixed technique,
Sasza Blonder Archive
1929-1937, Special Collec-
tions of the Polish Academy
of Sciences, Warsaw.
-> see p.155

166

he used were very simple, a few strokes, or a single stroke (figures 5-6). However,
the landscapes he created are fuli of expression, and they evoke some unspecified
memories in the viewer. Compared with other works by Blonder, they lack the dis-
tance with which the artist treated the entire surrounding world from the heights of
his twenty-year-old life. In this case, he became vulnerable, he betrayed his feelings,
his relationship with the place whence he came, where he was running as a child and
observing everything around him: the peasants at the market, the marching army,
the funeral procession, the cripple supported on a stick, against the background
of church towers or onion domes of the orthodox tempie. This was his homeland -
he was a Jewish boy from an orthodox family, raised in the Podolia province. This
aspect must not be overlooked. The artist came from a religious family, he had been
brought up in accordance with traditional principles, he knew Yiddish and Hebrew,
and he corresponded in these languages with his friends and acquaintances. He was
strongly involved in the life of his community: he was interested in Zionism, and as
a young man he belonged to Hashomer Hatzair, a Jewish youth organization that
was part of the World Zionist Organization. He was interested in the politics and
the futurę of the Jewish people, but probably not to the same extent as his brother
Fiszel (see: Fig. 2), who in the mid-i92os decided to go to Palestine.3 Something else
has won within Sasza: in 1926, he madę a trip to Paris, and probably this particular
choice decided his further path in life.
He was attached to his homeland, and yet, from the very beginning something
pushed him away from his country. He madę his First long journey still before his
graduation. After graduating, without much delay, he left again. He travelled from
Chortkiv, located on the eastern reaches of Europę, almost immediately to the op-
posite end of the continent. Why? And how did a young man from the provinces
become so passionate about art?
The answer, at least to the last question, will be found again in his sketchbooks -
drawings of a young artist, revealing a great sensitivity towards the entire surround-
ing world: the people, the relationships between them, the objects, the animals, the
landscapes. The forms shown in an eloquent abridgement reveal the hand of an
insightful observer, sensitive to every detail. The shape and colour of the hanging
curtains are no less important than the face of a friend or the lover s features. The
tiled stove, where you can prepare a meal and warm up on winter evenings, becomes
an independent protagonist of the artist s work, repeating itself multiple times, just
like the oil lamp lit at night, in the blaze of which the world takes on a strangely
demonie expression. However, the choice of Blonder s artistic path was determined
not only by the sensitivity and insight in his observation of the world, but above
all - which is noticeable in his works - by the overwhelming need to express
himself, to get the excess of accumulated emotions and thoughts out of his system.
Nonę of the surrounding trinkets escapes the artists attention. Objects seem
to live their own lives. This is true not only of the drawings, but also of the poetry
written by the painter. With this “excess” of impressions, observations, and reflec-
tions, it is not surprising that Blonder needed to pour them on paper - not only in
the form of drawings but also poems. Both forms of the artist s work complement
3 Fiszel Blonder was born in 1905. He left for Palestine in October 1924, and returned to Poland
probably in September 1925. He was murdered by the Nazis in July 1941 in Chortkiv, https://yvng.
yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=6i9ii3&ind=o (accessed on 12 vn 2018).

ARTICLES

Natasza Styrna