Painting and Sculpture
Socialist realism in Polish art was confined to portraits of party leaders and various depictions of muscular labourers and battle scenes, with special attention paid to popular taste. Formally inspired by Neoclassicism as well as the local folk art, socrealism served strictly political and pro-Soviet propaganda purposes; however, its most notable artists, such as Wojciech Weiss and Włodzimierz Zakrzewski were educated before Stalinism and inadvertently adhered to traditional Western techniques and technologies. Some of the most blatantly socrealist paintings were: "Pass-on the brick" (Podaj cegłę) pictured here, by Aleksander Kobzdej, and "Thank you tractor operator" (Podziękowanie traktorzyście) pictured here, as well as "Comrade Bierut among labourers" (Towarzysz Bierut wśród robotników) by Helena and Juliusz Krajewski.
In sculpture, there was a trend toward stone-carved allegories elevating the common worker, used mainly for architectural purposes, such as those surrounding the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, including mostly plaster busts of communist apparatchiks. The collection of Polish socrealist sculpture is exhibited at Kozłówka Palace near Lubartów.
Read more about this topic: Socialist Realism In Poland
Famous quotes containing the words painting and/or sculpture:
“Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo and the Jove impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait the artist recorded in stone, he had seen in life, and better than his copy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)