Folk Art of Poland [antikvár]

Folk art has long transcended the boundaries of its own environmentin fact, true interest in it is now focused in the towns, among people who are not ignorant of either modern art or the supreme masterpieces of the past. We admire the homeliness of folk sculpture, painting and woodcuts, the beauty of textile fabrics and paper cutoutstheir perfection and their simplicity. We discover in such products of hands lined by toil things that are close to us, and even we, for whom this art is inextricably associated with the very concept of our native country, often perhaps with the landscape of our own childhood, perceive in it today novel values, such as formerly we did not even suspect. And by getting to know this art better, by penetrating beneath the thin crust of the most superficial of emotions, we encounter in it values comparable with those of the great art of our times.What is moreit is precisely the art of the twentieth century, which has enabled us fully to understand and appreciate the value of traditional folk art, to approach it without that smile of condescension or curiosity which we reserve for exotic productsbut simply as works of an art that is both authentic and mature. What I have in mind above all else is sculpture in which we re-discover features common to those of the works of the Middle Ages, the primitives of Tuscany and the art of Catalonia, and, at the same time, that courage which is characteristic of the avant-garde of the early twentieth century.I should not like to be misunderstood : I am not saying that this is a "timeless" art or one that is common to all peoples. It has tangible features which are exclusive to the folk culture of our country and are specifically Polish. But there are also other elements which our art shares with that of other cultures, remote in time and spacea kindred way of thinking, a naive faith, the lonely labour of overcoming the resistance of matter.Man is man wherever he lives, experiencing similar sensations of joy and of sorrow, and moving within the self-same orbit of life and deathand hope.When looking at a product of folk art, we do not usually go into the reasons why any particular form has been chosen. Indeed, we may even take little interest in the actual function of such products in their proper environment and at the time when they were created. This is what happens to every cultural heritage and to all tradition : we always extract from it only what harmonizes with our own time, what we feel is close to usand what we neednow. Surely, our glance at a carving of the Man of Sorrows or a Pieta differs from that of the peasant kneeling before a shrine in a country road or field. Whatis of interest to us, today, is principally the plastic quality of the work, its expressiveness. Of course, this art canand in fact ought tobe viewed from diverse angles. The ethnographer, the historian, the sociologist, the art historian and the artist wiU each be attracted by a different facet of it. One can also approach it from the point of view of its handsomeness, its artistic value being the thing that matters above all else. This is the kind of approach proposed in this book. It shows the artistic output of the common people in proportions different from those usually applied to it, by putting the emphasis on aspects that have previously been neglected or belitded.