Works by Polish artists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are on show for the primary time on the Nationwide Museum of Fashionable Artwork in Kyoto. The exhibition ‘Younger Poland: Polish Artwork 1890-1918’ contains echoes of Japanese inventive custom.
Greater than 150 works together with work, drawings and prints from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the moment are on present in Japan in what’s been described as a ‘veritable treasure’ of probably the most iconic examples of Polish Modernism.
“The exhibition is of nice significance for Polish-Japanese cultural relations. It makes it potential to current for the primary time within the Land of the Cherry Blossom, artistic endeavors that represent the canon of our nationwide tradition,” mentioned Polish Minister of Tradition and Nationwide Heritage Hanna Wróblewska throughout the official opening.
Professor Andrzej Szczerski, Ph.D., director of the Nationwide Museum in Krakow, the place many of the items of inventive craftmanship will be seen every day, assessed that this was ‘the biggest exhibition of Younger Poland’s artwork in Japan in historical past’.
“The quite a few viewers and media representatives who attended the opening emphasised the inventive significance of the works on show and the importance of the exhibition, exhibiting how the artwork of Younger Poland was capable of specific each nationwide content material and converse the common language of artwork,” he mentioned.
The exhibition occupies all the ground of MOMAK (The Nationwide Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Kyoto) and is organized in response to successive themes that talk, amongst different issues, of inspirations from nature, historical past, Japanese influences and Polish nationwide type.
Masterpieces of Polish modernism within the coronary heart of Japan
“It is a story of Polish historical past, the prologue of which is printed by the works of Jan Matejko and Artur Grottger, however above all of Younger Poland’s artwork, which on the flip of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries not solely constructed nationwide id, but additionally made Poland, though it didn’t exist on maps, current and profitable within the inventive salons of Europe,” reads the exhibition catalogue.
Among the many displays are works by such Polish masters as Olga Boznańska, Jacek Malczewski, Józef Mehoffer, Władysław Podkowiński, Józef Pankiewicz and Stanisław Wyspiański.
Guests will be capable to admire, amongst others, Włodzimierz Tetmajer’s “The Artist’s Household”, Leon Wyczółkowski’s “Stańczyk” or Józef Pankiewicz’s “Czesząca się”. Jacek Malczewski’s ‘Portrait of Feliks Jasieński’, ‘Lady with Chrysanthemums’ and ‘Florists’ by Olga Boznańska additionally flew to Kyoto. There might be ‘Jane with a Japanese Doll’ by Alphonse Karpinski, ‘Musicians on the Bridge’, ‘Poppies’ and ‘Fears’ by Wojciech Weiss, in addition to ‘The Bearded Lady’ by Władysław Ślewiński.
Additionally on show at MOMAK are two works by Boznanska which have by no means been exhibited earlier than – these are ‘Tulips’ and ‘Portrait of Mrs L’. Whereas the painter was nonetheless alive, they ended up within the assortment of Magosaburō Ōhara, a Japanese entrepreneur and collector and philanthropist. They’re at the moment saved within the museum that completes his assortment – the Ohara Museum of Artwork in Kurasiki, Japan.
The phenomenon of ‘Younger Poland’ – rise up, freedom and individualism
As artwork historian and founding father of the ‘Outdoors the Body’ platform Maja Michalak explains Younger Poland is a particular and intensely numerous interval in portray. Analogous to Younger Germany or Younger Scandinavia, as a result of the inventive currents had been equally named somewhere else in Europe, which was to emphasize the freshness and progressive method to artwork every time.
“The area and synonym of those instances was the manifestation of rise up, the demand for freedom and the will to method artwork otherwise and thus additionally to current what every of those artists was notably near,” says Michalak.
“The artists put extra emphasis on their very own individuality, making use of the varied developments that intermingled on the time: artwork nouveau, impressionist, symbolist additionally or expressionist. And all these developments manifested themselves in a barely totally different means in every artist,” she provides.
‘Japonism’ – a fascination that introduced two cultures collectively
A particular side of the exhibition in Kyoto is the chance to hint how Japanese aesthetics influenced Polish artists a century in the past.
“We even have to speak in regards to the Japanism that prevailed on the time, i.e. the fascination with Far Japanese artwork, which was extraordinarily intriguing and interesting to artists on the time,” explains Michalak. “They drew from it not solely immediately components reminiscent of followers and kimonos, which had been imported and later proven in work, but additionally motifs reminiscent of dragonflies or peacocks, which had been strongly related to Asian tradition. The diagonal means of composition and the introduction of extra asymmetry had been additionally taken from Japanese woodcuts.”
Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha, curator of the Kyoto exhibition, factors out the particular function performed by a widely known Polish artwork critic and collector in selling Japanese artwork in Poland: “The works of those excellent artists are accompanied by Japanese woodcuts, exhibiting the hyperlink between Polish artwork and Japan. An necessary protagonist of the exhibition is the good artwork collector Feliks ‘Manggha’ Jasieński, to whom a separate part has been devoted, and who, together with his ardour for gathering and his friendship with the Younger Poland artists of Krakow, contributed to spreading amongst them the style for Japanism.”
Jasieński collected the very best examples of Japanese artwork in his assortment, which he made obtainable to artists, generally even lending them to them. Ultimately, in 1920, together with all the artwork assortment, he donated them to the Nationwide Museum in Krakow.
“He additionally commissioned work from artists impressed by Japan, with which he was a lot in love,” provides Michalak. “This mixture within the exhibition of Younger Poland and Japan just isn’t unintentional. It could make it simpler for the Japanese to return into contact with these works exactly as a result of they’ll see components which can be a part of their tradition and which can be simply learn by them.”
‘Lady with chrysanthemums’ – the image of the exhibition and Boznanska’s renaissance
The posters and animations selling the exhibition featured Olga Boznańska’s portray ‘Dziewczynka z chryzantemami’ – one of the vital well-known works of the Younger Poland interval. Plainly this selection just isn’t unintentional – Boznańska is at the moment experiencing a posthumous renaissance of recognition, and her delicate, psychological portrait artwork appeals to modern sensibilities. Apparently, within the animation selling the exhibition, the melancholic little lady within the portray this time smiles radiantly.
“Olga Boznańska is a kind of artists and a kind of ladies who devoted her complete life to creating. She needed to have the identical alternatives to create as males and to be handled equally with them,” explains Michalak. “She put the whole lot on her profession. She was very decided about it”, provides the artwork critic.
Boznańska spent most of her life in Paris, the place she grew to become notably well-known for her portraits filled with emotion and psychological depth.
“The way in which of portray may be very attribute and emblematic of Boznańska. Skillfull, near the individual portrayed, filled with emotion. We are able to examine it to the best way the Baroque artist Diego Velázquez used his paintbrush, as a result of Boznańska was impressed by him amongst others, but additionally near her, for instance, Édouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler or Berthe Morisot. These psychological portraits are what we most affiliate with Olga Boznańska. And he or she may be very rightly given her well-deserved place within the historical past of artwork”, says Michalak.
“I feel that normally Younger Poland is without doubt one of the greatest intervals in our Polish portray, early portray,” says Michalak. “We merely have a complete group of artists there who should not solely fascinating due to their historical past and what they needed to convey, but additionally aesthetically and so purely visually. Whether or not we’re speaking about Boznańska or Pankiewicz, Mehoffer, Ślewiński – that is wonderful portray and, in my view, this needs to be our export commodity and one thing with which Polish portray needs to be related and additional promoted overseas.”
The exhibit ‘Younger Poland: Polish Artwork 1890-1918″, might be on present in Kyoto till 29 June.