Page 57 - Studio International - February 1970

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acts of the Gods or Spirits. When the masks skills and knowledge of his great ancestors. Simeon Solomon (1840-1905)
are worn by the masqueraders and the Perhaps they feel that they have exploded The Betrothal of Isaac and Rebecca (1854-63)
Oil on canvas
masqueraders are possessed by the spirits they `the mystique' of African art.
29¼ x 21¼ in.
q
are driven by super-human forces. Frequently DENNIS DUERDEN 5
W. R. Sickert (1860-1942)
the masquerader is controlled by special Girl Seated on Bed (c. 1908)
keepers hanging on to long ropes. The keepers 13½ x 10 in.
lead him through the village and prevent him The English know very little about Polish art. 6
Makonde sculpture
from doing mischief to the spectators. When We've heard of Vit Stotz, of course, but Ebony
the spirit enters a frenzy in his trance the then he was Swabian, and we've seen pictures
7
keepers have to hang on to the ropes with a of the magnificent Renaissance court in the Henryk Stazewski
show of great courage and determination. Wawel, Cracow, but who has managed to see Abstract composition c. 1929
Oil on canvas
Not all African sculpture expresses horrendous it in reality? The present exhibition at the Museum of Art, Lodz
forces trying to escape. Fertility figures may ROYAL ACADEMY goes a long way towards 8
show children suckled at the breast with great remedying the situation and is astonishingly Jozef Mehoffer
Woman in Garden 1903
tenderness and delicacy or portraits of the varied, including, for example, outstanding Oil on canvas
ancestors carved in very hard wood may examples of medieval wood-carving, illu-
express their detachment and their vener- strated books, gold and silver work and
ability. When the sculptor is working on Baroque portraiture.
creating these figures he must work in a Space prevents a discussion of anything more
special hut surrounded by the spirit-pantheon than the contemporary work. It is particularly
of his people and they will help to bring out here, with the art produced from 1900 on-
wards, that we know far too little of develop-
ments in Poland. Paintings by Jozef Mehoffer
and a few of the posters hint at the vigour and
originality of the Polish contribution to Art
Nouveau, an important aspect of the move-
ment which is mentioned in few of the books
on the subject. But the area which most
needs real clarification in accessible languages
is Poland's contribution to Constructivism
and geometric abstraction and the role
played by of Henryk Stazewski and Wlady-
slaw Strzeminski. References are repeatedly
made to the latter, particularly to his book
Unism in Painting (1928), but this has been
translated into neither English, French, nor
German and his theories in general and his
co-operation with Malevich at Vitebsk remain
tantalizingly undiscussed.
The contemporary work on show is, with one
the superhuman qualities which the mask or or two exceptions, depressing, revealing to
figure must possess to turn it into an efficacious my mind, the predicament of artists living in
vehicle for the spirits to come to the aid of the a country which, for Eastern Europe, has
community and participate in their affairs— pursued a liberal art policy while making it
for example by seeking out witches or helping virtually impossible for artists to establish
the crops to grow or women to have children. any real contacts with developments in the
It is not difficult for a European artist to West. The best pieces are therefore those
recognize the expressive qualities in the best which stand outside the major international
works of traditional African art, and Picasso, trends. Jozef Gielniak, for example, an artist
Matisse, Derain, Brancusi and many others confined for most of his life to a sanatorium,
have collected these works and made use of has given the linocut a degree of versatility,
their qualities in their own work. The African a range which is truly amazing, and Zbig-
artist who produced them generally served niew Makowski's obsessively detailed drawings
many years of apprenticeship and grew up in recall, on the one hand, the perspectival
the unified art traditions that produced them, perplexities of Piranesi and, on the other,
learning the music, the dance, and the extra- the fine and intricate copper engravings
ordinary oral poetry of the community at the in baroque books. Best of all are the posters,
same time. Nowadays it appears as if any a field in which Polish artists have for years
carver or carpenter in the back streets of been experts and innovators. It's a pity that
Dar-es-Salaam, Lourenço Marques or some so few posters are on show, that Jan Lenica
other African urbanised port is supposed to is not represented, and that they do not ap-
be able to produce them. He has merely to pear in the catalogue. With luck, the modern
carve a puckish face or a piece of rough wood section of this exhibition will persuade some-
seemingly lodged between two smooth, one to begin work clarifying Poland's contri-
polished ropes for the anthropologists and butions to modernism. Stazewski is still alive
university professors to say 'Oh, how clever!' and his reminiscences would be a good start.
and to pronounce that really he has all the FRANK WHITFORD q
77