The Warsaw Group Rytm (1922-32) and Modernist Classicism - ebook

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter One: Rytm’s Exhibitions: The ‘Exhibitions Narrative’ Revisited

First Exhibition (1922): Setting up the Key Lines

The First Exhibition: the Foundation? • Novelty and Positive Anticipation • Discussing Stylistic Profile: Compositional Unity • Classicism between Historicism and Formalism • Domesticating the Myth • Rhythmism • Rytm and Pani (1922–1925): Art and Consumption • A New Political Voice • International and ‘Representative’ Ambitions

Second Exhibition (1923): a Disappointment in Kraków

Rytm: a Warsaw Group from Kraków • Rytm between Formism and Sztuka

Third Exhibition (1923): an Alliance with WTAP and Południe

A Pact against Zachęta • A Pact against Impressionism

Fourth Exhibition (1924): Crystallisation of Aesthetic and Political Positions

Formalist Classicism against Impressionism • Turbulent Outcome: Break with Zachęta • The Alliance with the Liberal Literary World: Wiadomości Literackie and Skamander

Fifth Exhibition (1925): Terza Biennale Romana. Rytm Abroad

Organisational Controversy • The 1925 Paris Exhibition

Sixth Exhibition (1926): Farewell to Zak, Rytm’s Founder and its Member from Paris

Seventh to Ninth Exhibitions (1926–1929): Interim

Loss of Stylistic Unity • Back to Painterliness • New State Patronage and the General National Exhibition (PWK) of 1929

Tenth and Eleventh Exhibitions (1930–1932): Back to the Salon

Chapter Two: Rytm and Politics at Home and Abroad

Rytm and the ‘Regime’

‘National’ Art without Pathos. Rytm and Poland’s New

‘National Style’ • Rytm and Sanacja • From Rytm to ‘State-forming Artists’ • The ‘Propaganda’ Argument. Poland’s New Foreign Exhibitions Policy as the Game Changer for Rytm

Rytm and the Dream of Modern Art Patronage

Rytm and Institutions. The Impact of Skoczylas and Pruszkowski • Rytm and the Community Spirit • State Education and Democracy • ‘Widening participation’. Between State Support and Market Currents

Chapter Three: Interwar Classicisms and the Modernist Idiom

The Subject of Classicismand the Problem with Traditionalism • Historical Pastiche of Roman Kramsztyk and Tadeusz Pruszkowski • Traditionalism via St Petersburg. Ludomir Sleńdziński

The ‘New Classicism’ between Innovation and Reaction

‘New Classicism’: the Regress or the Progress of the Parisian Avant-garde? • Political Classicism and Interwar Classicism’s Post-War Framing

Tracing a Reaction Further Back: Modernist Classicism against Impressionism

‘Rhythm – Composition – Classicality’: the Programme of Rytm • The ‘Formal’ Classicism. Classicism as a Category of Form • The ‘Symbolic Classicism’. Museion and the Influence of French Literary Symbolism • Focus on Maurice Denis

Chapter Four: Rytm and the Classicism of Maurice Denis: Structure and Synthesis

Classicism as Formalism of Subordination. The Method of Synthesis • Anti-Academic Classicism of Denis and its Modern Lineage • Rytm and Denis. Identifying the Links • Antoine Bourdelle’s ‘Return to Form’ • Standing with Denis. Rytm and the Persistence of Symbolic Formalism

Chapter Five: ‘Rhythmism’. Rytm and Bergsonism

Between Classicism and Primitivism. Bergsonian Myth inRytm’s Images of Idyll and Dance

The Bergsonian Myth of a Primal Unity. ‘Rhythm’ as la Durée • The Case of Bolesław Leśmian’s Poetry • Rytm’s Idylls • Images of Dance • The Dynamic Dionysian Classicism: Youth and Joyfulness

Between Classicism and Expressionism. ‘Rhythm’ and Bergsonism in Early Formalism

Bergsonism and the Synthetist Symbolic System. Images of Rhythmic Harmony • The Rhythmist Method(s). Between Classicism and Abstract Formal Expression

Bergson Against Manifesto

‘Rhythm’: the ‘Non-Descriptive Label’ and a Marker of Modernity • Against Manifesto, or Bergsonian Anti-Programme

Chapter Six: ‘Moderate’ Modernism or Modernist ‘Totality’? Rytm’s Search for Style

The ‘Style of Rytm’ • The Case ofEugeniusz Zak’s Applied Decoration • Between the Modernist Decorative and Art Deco. Two Legacies of the 1925 Paris Exhibition • Rytm, Monumentality, and the ‘Style of the Epoch’ • Rytm and the Avant-garde in Poland: Two Modernisms

Conclusion

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Index of Names

Index of Topics

Appendices