Rozmowy ze Stanisławem Szczepańskim
Conversations with Stanisław Szczepański

Summary/Abstract: During the 1949–1965 period the outstanding painter and pedagogue Stanisław Szczepański (1895–1973) taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In the 1950s, when Polish art academies were dominated by “socialist realism”, he attracted students craving different values. Having studied in Paris under Józef Pankiewicz, Szczepański possessed genuine knowledge and culture combined with spiritual qualities moulded by Platonic philosophy and the impact of the Far East. The author of Rozmowy ze Stanisławem Szczepańskim recorded conversations held with his teacher in 1945–1968, i.e. at the age of 18–32. Themes constantly perturbing Stanisław Szczepański deal with the union between expressing space in painting and the composition of the plane as well as between space and light. The significance of those factors determining the connection between content and form was both practical, i.e. purely painterly, and philosophical. A frequent emphasis on the need to perceive simultaneously all elements comprising the painting was also the outcome of philosophical premises. The crux of the matter involved ties between microcosm and macrocosm, the creation of an image of a world in which all elements constitute an organic entity. In Rozmowy these leitmotifs intertwine with the artist’s reminiscences, at time anecdotal, featuring Zygmunt Waliszewski, a figure straight from the “golden legend” of Polish twentieth-century art.

• Details
• Contents