P o czet dziek anó w - Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku

O N P A I N T I N G … 49
The departure from socrealism, which started with the famous exhibition of the young in
the Arsenal Gallery of Warszawa during the summer of 1955, meant, among other things,
the restoration of the individual studio system, but also - especially in the case of the
Academy in Gdańsk, which had received a new seat in the meantime – the return to
the previous artistic practice. The paintings of the “Sopot Youth” at Warszawa exhibition
favored moderation and the search for aesthetical solutions that were so different
from the works of “Barbarians”, which caused so much commotion. Although the process
of leaving the colourist tradition went slowly, changes were visible: the geometrism of
Jackiewicz, Ostrowski’s fantasy, the synthesizing colorfulness in canvases of Pągowska,
the “Tashism” of Pietkiewicz, the grotesque of Zabłocki, the researches of Usarewicz
and other, more experienced artists, for instance Kasprowicz or Studnicki. In 1956 Jerzy
Olkiewicz wrote with intentional, as he claimed – as usual, for the sake of therapeutic
goals - exaggeration:
The painters of Sopot seem to be in need of the relaxation of (the painter’s, naturally) code
of behavior. Even if it required spitting on the floor […] The landscapes that advocate
stillness and boredom - scenery in which dark greenness of trees contrasts with noble
grayness of walls, dignified blue of the sky, a checkered pattern of idyllic fields of cereals,
vernal landscapes in the colors of the woman’s underwear – much as this all is very pretty,
it will jostle haberdashery strongly, dejected, dispassionate, a bit narrow and a bit replete
idleness.
The strict hierarchy of the environment, as well as the division of the painters of Wybrzeże
region painters into two classes: the “professors” who had the power to define aesthetical
norms, with their suede shoes and classic suits, and the lower class of their subordinates,
consisting entirely of the younger creators, were the two factors that were considered as
one of the reasons for such monotony and passivity by the author of the above quoted
review. Piotr Potworowski, who came to Gdańsk in 1958, comparing the pre-war and the
present work of Polish colorists, affirmed exceptional resistance to the changes of reality
and also to the transformations in arts:
Not even a tree on their paintings dared to move - the same pond, the same red little roofs
among the trees, not even a tile missing.
At the same time he valued the searching adventures of young artists that were even more
difficult, due to the traditionalism of the most influential circles. The important role of
Piotr Potworowski in the transformation of the colourist aesthetics is unquestionable,
it has been repeatedly touched upon in literature. On the other hand, however, the opposite
process is sometimes observed, i. e. the stimulation, or the “modernization” of the
language of artistic statement of Potworowski, with the phenomena that he found in the
Polish arts of the period. Organized in 1959, a famous exhibition of 27 painters and sculptors
from Gdańsk region, with most of them obviously associated with the Academy, was
then, but it also worked against us later on.
The afore quoted passage indicates several problems: first, the mythological plan, in which
some details get blurred when regarded from a distance, whereas certain other selected
elements assume gigantic proportions and they go through generalization; second, the
artistic ambitions of the Academy are difficult to realize, especially when the artistic activity
is a part of the six-year-long economic plan.
Teisseryre’s words, in the same way as the reports of Józefa Wnukowa, illustrate the strategy
of effective compromises assumed by the educators, which assured, among others, a
success at the socrealistic exhibitions and created the so-called “Sopot School” which
managed to combine artistic values with the requirements of the tenet. And since the
requirements were never fully specified – the slogan “socialist content and national
form” was a kind of a “notional sack” – the term denoting the Sopot School started to
be distinctive, at first as a positive feature, and later it started to mean things rather
undesirable as, for example, “schematism”, using ready-made formulas, or concentrating
on formal questions while lacking the emotional commitment. With the award at the
Second Polish National Exhibition of Fine Arts (1951/1952) for the group project entitled
Demonstration of the First of May 1905, as well as for various individual works, the artists
of Sopot aroused hopes for the works that would meet both the artistic criteria and
the ideological ones. As time went by, however, the artists presented mainly landscapes
and portraits again, and also still lives, something that was always present at regional
exhibitions as less susceptible to political pressure. The notion of “socaesthetics”, coined
by Janusz Bogucki, meaning the works of “Sopot Professors”, but also younger painters:
Jerzy Zabłocki, Władysław Jackiewicz, Bohdan Borowski, Teresa Pągowska and others,
came as disappointing. According to its author, the term referred to the firm composition
through division of canvas into large planes; to full and thick color; to general legibility
and “superficiality” of the study; to the application of smooth, impressionistic stain. Not
without some didactic irony he wrote:
So this is what it looks in practice - that doubtless cultural form of socaesthetics bred in
Sopot. It is able to satisfy at least three postulates. Current subject? Yes. Clear form? Yes.
Links with the tradition of the nineteenth century? Yes. And cultural colourist painting?
Also – yes!
Soon the active participation in the reconstruction of the Old Town in Gdańsk started to
serve as a kind of justification for the absence of „great”, engaged subjects on the canvases
of the Sopot School and as a counterargument against the accusations regarding
political indifference. And the results of the official socrealistic system were so lean that
the evaluating criteria were becoming less and less strict. During the last, Fourth Polish
National Exhibition of Fine Arts the landscapes of Studnicki (Mill over Radunia, Church in
Chmielno, Road to Chmielno) were accepted almost enthusiastically and rewarded.
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