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The theory of art origin is researched in several nations from various art aspects. The comparison between tattoos of aborigine faces and modern soldiers’ camouflage is presented. The ways of “recording” space on plane surfaces, types of perspectives in children’s drawings are reviewed; the link between those types in children’s drawings and works of artists of various epochs is presented. The assumption of ornamental way of seeing is raised. The origin of ornament is researched.
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In Witkacy’s plays death is omnipresent, there is almost no play ”without a corpse”. The ”natural”death, the accidental death as well, is an exception. The rule is the violent death, is murder andsexually motivated murder as well as an on stage not committed but announced suicide. Usually,death does not drive forward the action on the stage; it is just present, as a matter of course. A peculiarrole plays the sexually motivated murder, that can in both offender and victim activate an increaseof intensity of life. Death is rarely combined with tragedy, rather with comic. The overcomingof death is not in sight. Only in one single play ”love overcomes death”.
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The article presents the history of the forgotten amateur opera ensemble created in 1947 in Wrocław by Stanisław Drabik. Its members were workers from various Wrocław factories who, in December 1948, performed Stanisław Moniuszko's Flis at the local opera house. The article is based on various sources and gives a detailed reconstruction of the subsequent phases of the institution's activity: its creation, the rehearsals, the premiere and the disbanding of the ensemble. The text also attempts to distinguish the factors shaping the history of the ensemble, especially the intentions of its founder and the propaganda contexts, as well as the relationship between them.
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Tomasz Kowalski reviews Cezary Tomaszewski's play The Queen of Madagascar's Soldier (Bogusławski Theater in Kalisz, premiere: 12.12.2015), beginning by telling the story of how the work was created, and how it continues to function. The author sums up the plot in order to show how it disintegrates in the performance through fragmentation and the added subplots. Kowalski describes various scenes in order to show how the text exposes the theatricality of the actors' performances. He also lauds the acting and the director for their absurdist humor and the remarkable energy of the production.
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Parfianowicz-Vertun examines the role of literacy practices and verbal creativity in Czech underground culture. She focuses on ways in which underground artists used writing and the written words; the tension between writing and alternative culture, which was largely based on the spoken word; as well as situations in which the act of writing became a performance of sorts. The article explores various aspects of underground culture: music, poetry, fine art and samizdat publishing.
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Aftermath was released in the late 2012. Its director, Władysław Pasikowski, had previously been famous for his violent action films with strong male protagonists. He has also written some of the most sexist dialogues in the history of Polish cinema, as well as a number of lines, often obscene, which have become catchphrases and slogans present every day in the pop culture. His latest film, however, tackles a completely different issue – this thriller-cum-western tells a story that is decidedly contemporary, but nevertheless inspired by the events that took place in Jedwabne (described by Jan Tomasz Gross in his book Neighbors). Aftermath does not attempt to provide a reconstruction of the events that took place “on the margins of the Holocaust” (including Jedwabne). However, it clearly hints at the issue of the Polish contribution to the extermination of Jews and the impact of the conspiracy of silence having been broken. The film gave rise to a heated debate, which rippled through the Polish media for as long as two months after its release. This article is an attempt to analyse and interpret the words and ideas that appeared in the debate.
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The article discusses fan practices of Polish viewers of the Turkish TV series Magnificent Century (Muhteşem Yüzyıl, "Wspaniałe stulecie"). Using this example, the author analyzes the issue of cultural incorporation, recontextualization and reinterpretation of foreign narrative conventions. The article also describeshow people digitally excluded join the fandom and get 'infected' by the need for`drilling` down into their favorite text. As a result, they acquire new technological skills and build online knowledge communities described by Henry Jenkins.
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In the interview about the sense of freedom in actors, the issue of the actors’creative work and its role in theatre and film from the director’s point of view wasraised. An outstanding Polish director answers the questions on acting criteria,describes actors’ professional work and distinguishes between it and other typesof work, stresses the role of acting skills, thorough and efficient education preparingfor work, the tradition of great acting schools and methods of the actor’s workon a role with the support of masters of acting and directing and indicates a socialand cultural importance of great art of acting. In their conversation, Saniewski andMróz also focus on the role of time that has passed by and its impact on actors’ anddirectors’ creative work. They also raise the issue of changes in personality andhierarchy of values in the outstanding Polish actors.
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Iwona Kurz reviews the play March ’68: Living Well Is the Sweetest Revenge by Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski (the Jewish Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 14.05.2016). The author notes that the space, which recalls part of a great props room, could symbolize the dark corners of the Polish imagination. She also perceives the specificity of the community in the performance – situated between heaven and purgatory. The clear division between Poles and Jews here is a basis for articulating fear of the other on stage. Kurz takes a critical view of Demirski’s moralizing text, which reduces language to catchphrases and slick bon mots, while abandoning humor, which had been the strength of his work to date. Moreover, the reviewer believes that any discussion on Polish antisemitism is rendered futile in the context the artists create.
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The author states that this year's Sirenos Festival in Vilnius (24.09-4.10.2015) was among the most remarkably successful, despite the extremely pessimistic tone of most of the plays, which were more or less direct responses to the present political situation in Europe. Burzyńska analyzes what she saw as the festival's three best stagings: Heroes' Squaredirected by Krystian Lupa, Boris Godunov directed by Eimuntas Nekrošius, and Cleansed directed by Oskaras Koršunovas, which joined the motifs of madness and dabbling with evil.
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The text is devoted to a court chapel at Jabłonów Litewski on the Neman (currently in Belarus) founded around 1748 by an eccentric patron, Prince Józef Aleksander Jabłonowski, together with his residence in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The architecture of the chapel was directly modelled on a late baroque church at Wołczyn, probably by making effective use of its design by an eminent Warsaw architect Johannn Sigismund Deybel, while elevations were ornamented à la grecque as late as in the 1770s, possibly introducing the earliest neoclassicist forms in Lithuania. Based on restricted archival sources combined with site inspection, the article reconstructs the history of the building and disposition of the residence, placing the chapel within its composition as a Gesamtkunstwerk serving the glory of the owner. It analyses the mechanisms of magnate foundation and the problem of sharing the sacred objects by the Roman Catholic and Uniate rites. It also emphasizes originality of exploiting local mineral – bog iron – in wall decoration, which with its skilful contrast of white and black (or dark russet) gave the building an air of elegant neoclassicist costume.
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This article attempts to present the significance of entrepreneurship in the professional life of actors. The results of a pilot research have been presented in the context of relationships between the arts and business. As described by the respondents entrepreneurship can be regarded as a a particular personality trait or a set of skills, or finally a certain attitude towards their personal and professional life. It has been linked to responsibility for one’s professional activities and to value creation, not only in the economic dimension. The article concludes with general remarks on some factors contributing to possible misunderstandings of the concept of entrepreneurship in the artistis professions.
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Although he is a Wroc³aw artist, Wojciech Lupa is little known in his home town. He mostly exhibits in Paris and other places in France. He had a show in Szczecin, and in Germany. He is a professor at the Art Academy in Wroc³aw. He works systematically, with consequence. It is difficult to say which style he prefers, because he never followed artistic ideas, which dominated in art the 1980’s and the 1990’s. He is connected with the Wroclaw artistic tradition, which concentrated on colorism. Also, he is interested in constructivism and other trends connected with that style. Abstract constructions by Lupa are based on such geometric forms as squares, ovals and rectangles. He uses such colors as delicate gray, brown, white and black colors. He likes to use intricate texture. His puristic technique is connected with meditative attitude towards the reality. His pictures are lyrical interpretation of decorative motifs. He contemplates different forms which he finds in clouds. He believes that quotations from ‘The Clouds’ by Aristophanes could be used to explain his art.
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“No 'image of reality' - no imaginary things - nothing but desert. This emptiness is enliven by the spirit pervading all no-object experience”. – This way, questioning the objectivity in painting, Casimir Malewich wrote in 1922 his suprematist manifesto. He ignored almost all traditional artistic media and he preached the supremacy of pure feeling and creativity which would start completely from scratch. He made painting autonomous, freed color from shape in order to finally abandon also the logic of color - only in the pure devoid of the idea, which in his opinion, dominates the practice. Malevich’s radical approach is connected with the fact that neither forms nor colors as such contributed to the clarity of his paintings. What is important in his approach arises between color and form as a result of gravitation towards each other: the relative proportions, relationships, interactions, the new formula of ‘abstraction’ and ‘abstracting’.
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The canon was a musical instrument, later called a monochord and by its simple construction – a string, stretched over an acoustic box. Its sounding harmonic capabilities were probably discovered, examined and transmitted in different musical and scientific fields. This article’s main objective, however, is the canon as musical form, and technique of interaction between voices, that had been at the core of European music construction, from Gothic time, to the musical heights of the 20th century. The arising question is, whether these so complicated and high forms could cultivate a particular kind of thinking, transmitting creative energy, engaging art from different époques.
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The article analyzes the creative artist’s relationship, from any field of artistic creation, with the community he belongs to and the variety of factors that interfere with the advantages and disadvantages resulting from the traditional, cultural and economic dimensions of the community. The paper successively illustrates the dependencies of this bipolar relationship, the shortcomings and risks together with the major tendencies of bad taste which, due to an unfortunate direction, with focus on ratings, gains access into the world of models worthy of consideration and of the media factors, or the lack of involvement of the institutions that play a defying role locally. The debate presents in its second half the notable example of the participation at optimal level in the cultural act, in order to get support and be promoted by the administrative institutions of the ones involved in the cultural emancipation of the community. An example in this direction is given by the model created by the artistic group The Feast of the Annunciation from Negresti-Oas, Satu-Mare, which exemplarily evolved because of the responsible implication of its members, local museum institutions, intelligent and good quality trustees and successive administrations of the town. All the above drew investments, cultural benefits and national and international fame to the group of initiators, to the community and to all the factors involved and assumed in this project which exceeded the 30-year threshold since its beginnings, becoming one of the lengthiest artistic groups from our country.
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Dan Voiculescu is one of the composers that will enrich the musical literature with highly inspirational works, which demonstrates a disposition and investigation of European aesthetic tendencies. He is concerned with expanding the choral repertoire for children and equal voices, managing to enhace it with works that follow the educational-formative purpose of collective singing since school age. He manages to create attractive works for children by expanding the range of choral means of expression concerning the melody, rhythm, harmony, polyphony or form. The choral miniature Revedere/Return is a work of great expressivity in which we find the intimate connection with the popular creation through the exploration of the folkloric modalism and the transfiguration of elements of great antiquity projected in contemporaneity.
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Jerzy Hejnowicz writes about artistic program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, the academy where he is employed as one of their professors. He considers drawing as a particular medium and educational subject. As the result of reforms introduced in the 1980’s by Prof. Jarosław Kozłowski, drawing is an independent field of studies and ‘the laboratory of the development of imagination’. There are sixteen drawing workshops at the academy in Poznań, and students can choose their favourite workshop. As the result of that, the academy educates young, interesting artists, who are able to fully understand and use the medium in their artistic careers.
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‘Exhibition of Rejects’/ Salon de Refusés of the First National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1950 In Poland, 1949 was the year when the artistic circles debated specifying the guidelines of Socialist Realism, a unique creative concept conceived by Soviet ideologists. Fine arts were incorporated into the process of consolidating class awareness and arousing positive emotions to the apparatus of Communist regime, and so they were also subdued to the Party control. The Ministry of Culture and Art established the Central Office for Art Exhibitions (CBWA), responsible for holding planned fine arts displays, in compliance with the ideological programme. The highest ranking were the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts (OWP), which in 1950-54 constituted a kind of a platform for the valid doctrine and allowed to verify it on a mass scale. Their centralized character allowed for the political correctness control of the works, while conferences and debates conducted at the same time, provided an opportunity for a systematic indoctrination of artists and critics. The article’s focus is on the First OWP, decisive for the Socialist Realism breakthrough in 1949-50, yet at the same time full of contradictions and inconsistencies resulting from political and time pressures. Despite hard trials the principles of the tendency had not as yet been clearly formulated, while the popular reform of artistic education in the Soviet spirit was only awaiting its launch in the subsequent academic year. Therefore, the First National Exhibition of Fine Arts was basically a confrontation with the existing until then variety of artistic approaches, based on the works executed by representatives of the elder and middle-aged generation of artists. Forced to abandon their previous artistic practises, they sought for different ways in order to fulfil the social tasks of art, however the results of their efforts had little to do with the Soviet Socialist Realism line. Its adaptation was most ‘reluctantly’ conducted in painting, which, being the leading discipline in fine arts, at the same time constituted the most challenging territory for the doctrine promoters. Holding an exhibition complying with the Kremlin instructions in this respect and prepared within six months required a centralized approach. For the purpose, a separate academic organization was created, named the State Institute of Art, in which ideological transformations in various artistic disciplines were coordinated. One of the main tasks of the organization related to fine arts was a methodical photographic record of the official exhibitions conducted since the First OWP in 1950 until the official end of the domination of Socialist Realism. Preserved intact, it currently forms part of the Collection of Photographs and Survey Drawings at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Being almost a full record of the artistic output of the Stalinist period, it constitutes a rare case of a definite phenomenon in art having its own complete archive created for the needs of one institution. In the recent years, the set has been digitalized, rescuing from oblivion almost 7,000 negatives, glass in the majority of cases. It contains the ‘black-and-white’ chronicle of Polish Socialist Realism, which being so extensive, opens the way for research into the peculiarities of the first half of the 1950s. Furthermore, it reveals the organizational background and political mechanisms ruling Polish artistic life over that challenging time. The most thorough and comprehensive entry is related to the first of such exhibitions in 1950, possibly mainly due to its largely ‘pilot’ and experimental character. It contains 809 photos, though it is known that 628 works were accepted. The remaining photos, amounting to 181, constitute an additional ‘informal’ record of the Exhibition, including, among others, the titular ‘Salon of Rejects’, created as a result of painting-related ideological arguments. It is made up of some dozens photographs of the paintings submitted for the First National Exhibition of Fine Arts, which did not match the valid criteria according to the qualifying committee; the documentation must have been meant to serve some ‘internal’ research and teaching goals, while also creating the ideological superstructure for the artists. The forgotten negatives, today provided in an accessible digitalized format, constitute unique iconographic material which allows a wider picture of the mechanisms running the Socialist Realism campaign from the turn of 1949 -50. Thanks to conscientiously kept entries into inventory books, we can recreate the full list of the painters who were not ‘cleared’ for display in 1950. Here are their names in alphabetical order: Marian Bogusz (1920-80), Tadeusz Brzozowski (1918-87), Maria Dawska (1909-93), Mieczysław Dyląg (1917-2004), Zdzisław Głowacki (1919-87), Bolesław Gozdawa-Piasecki (1912-80), Zofia Hertz-Łukańska (1915-83), Mieczysław Jurgielewicz (1900-83), Włodzimierz Kliszko (?-?), Zbigniew Kowalewski (1914-2000), Janina Kraupe (1921-2016), Hanna Krzetuska (1903-99), Tadeusz Kutermak (1909-90), Adam Marczyński (1908-85), Jadwiga Maziarska (1913-2003), Julian Pietrzyk (1907-95), Leon Rozpendowski (1897-1972), Józef Skrobiński (1910-79), Jan Szancenbach (1928-98), Czesław Rzepiński (1905-95), Władysław Wagner (1915-?), Stanisław Wałach (1919-83), Tadeusz Waśkowski (1883-1966), Mieczysław Wejman (1912-97), Zygfryd Wieczorek (1911- 80), Irena Wilczyńska (1907-78), Romuald Kamil Witkowski (1876-1950). All the enumerated artists represented different painterly formulae, in 1950 considered as incompatible with the Soviet method of describing the reality, beginning with the most widespread colourism, through Post-Cubism, up to the Avant-garde styles.
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