Jacek Sempoliński

… just when I became enthusiastic about mural painting, the idea of holding an exhibition in the Arsenal came up. I could not take part in the intensified discussions and organizational works because I was taken into the military. I spent three months in the army; admittedly, it was in Warsaw, I did some office work at the WKR (Military District Committee) and I continued to live at home but nonetheless it was so depressing that I had no strength to go to various places and take part in the discussions.

I was discharged on the 1st of April; by then the deadline for submitting entries in the competition had already been set. In the meantime, however, I had managed to practise painting, despite the theatre and other activities, of course not to the desirable extent, but still I painted quite a lot. After discharge, I was able to finish the picture that I had been painting on and off. I submitted that and two other paintings […]; one made it through, a still life, the one that mattered the most to me.

And that moment was very important to me because it reconsolidated me with the painting milieu after all these adventures and spells of discouragement. It made me aware of the right path: that nothing else could exist in my life other than painting.

Jacek Królak, Arsenał, op.cit.

Irrespective of what stance young people took towards the Kapist formulas, they sensed the concord of idea and its realization, which they encountered in the studios and in their conversations with the professors. They understood that art was a way of manifesting one’s worldview, was immanently bound to it and, even if the specific worldview and artistic doctrine per se did not always coalesce with the young people’s premonitions, it was that integrity that they found attractive. Those youngsters themselves deeply believed in integrity; it fulfilled their dream of great art, of a humanist conception of life.

Towards the end of the forties, the Academy began to be reached by news of a new widespread movement in art – realism. It was called socialist. The news filtered in from the press, from publications, from scholarly sessions, from conversations with colleagues initiated in the ways of political life. The period was crowned by the famous convention of art schools in Poznań, combined with a gigantic review exhibition of students’ works. Subsequently, an equally gigantic exhibition of the young was assembled at Warsaw’s National Museum, this time entirely devoted to the implementation of the new doctrine. It was also during that time that the first national realist exhibition of ‘the adults’ was held. The years 1949–1950 were a period of considerable confusion of concepts, major re-evaluations; a period of protest for some, of great hopes for others. Here they were facing the imminent rise of something that would be truly new, independent of the École de Paris, something that – in its universalism – would stand a chance to become a truly great period of art. All the gaps in the new doctrine, its primitivism, were given a kind of benefit of the doubt; at most, they were the subject matter of jokes or inconsequential irritations. Namely, mostly the young, but not only the young, were fascinated by the opportunity for change, curious of the new and unknown, curious of art which, after all, they were to make without any models to emulate. The Warsaw art milieu prepared very seriously for the national exhibition of the young artists. Stipends and painting materials were distributed, debates were organized. Discussions actually went on in private circles as well. The cafés of the time which were located near the Academy, especially the famous ‘Dołek’ (‘pit-hole’), were teeming with conversations, even arguments; new ideas and conceptions were being born. Even those sceptical about ‘the new’ were attracted by the intensity of that atmosphere. Finally, the exhibition was opened. It was a major surprise and… disappointment. Something that was supposed to be great became average, if not mediocre or downright bad. […] But it was not the appearance of the exhibition that disappointed the young painters so. There was also something deeper. Namely, many perceived the art of socialist realism as an opportunity for a great experiment, as an artistic path where one could not only paint new types of pictures but also – and above all – find a new kind of integration of worldview with artistic practice in painstaking labour. After all, as mentioned before, they all deeply believed in this integrity. To all of them art was a way of manifesting ideas and worldview. This is what they lived both before joining the Academy and as its students, in the studios of their masters. And while most had been tired of Kapism by then, no one wanted to part with the idea of integrity – that was something that no one was tired of. Those who had a very traumatic experience of the war, even if assuaged by the joy of renewed life after liberation, desired to find a mode of expression for that trauma and for the postwar reality. The young people had a need to activate the layers of consciousness in which historical experiences were deeply rooted, to translate into a language of art those of their views which that period of the most recent history had given rise to. That was accompanied by a hope that it would be possible, through artistic work in peaceful circumstances, to ‘regroup’ aesthetics, doctrines, their own habits, or temporary fascinations; that, by starting from scratch, as it were, via creations that were failed or only partly completed, they would finally manage to reach good results. These lofty ambitions were undermined by the practical reality of artistic life. There is no reason to discuss extensively the characteristics of that period; a reckoning with it has been long done. It is, however, worthwhile to stress the importance of the essential crisis – going beyond, as it were, the artistic sphere itself – which affected the more ambitious youth. Namely, it disturbed their belief in the possibility of integrating worldviews and attitudes with artistic praxis. Everything that served as motivation in art out of deep conviction – whether the old models or the aesthetics of colourism, or attempts at the aesthetics of realism – was undermined. This unity of the artist and his works, existing across views and movements as the main motivation for activity, was shattered. […]

In this atmosphere, an idea arose to organize a new exhibition of the young art during the World Youth Festival to be held in Warsaw. As you know, the exhibition was opened in the rooms of Warsaw’s Arsenal. It became a his- toric artistic manifestation. A lot has been written about it, and continues to be written. So there’s no point in repeating here what can be read elsewhere. With one correction, however: publications on the Arsenal Show always stress what you might call the stylistic features of that exhibition. Its expressionistic character (of often foreign provenance), epigonism, traditionalism, and lack of proposals directed towards the avant-garde trends in world art. Irrespective of how correct these descriptions and critiques have been, how reliable and in-depth the diagnoses, it seems appropriate to point out one important feature. The Arsenal Show, commonly referred to as an exquisite exhibition of poor paintings, was a new attempt at creating a model of art which, after years of latency, would restore the artist’s integrity, that concord of praxis and attitude, idea and its solution. Taking this perspective into account, the Arsenal Show was not a revival of the spirit of nationwide exhibitions but rather a negation of those exhibitions. This is why it was so attractive, why other creative circles (writers, musicians) envied us. It was the very spirit of the Arsenal Show that exerted this pull rather than its expressionist aesthetics. The power of authenticity and artistic identity overcame many reluctances. Modern life in its multifacetedness, the nightmare of the war and totalitarianism were given a convincing voice. The exhibition did not lack works that were in-depth reflection on human existence per se, on man’s perennial needs. So it was a complex and com- plicated – ‘three-dimensional’ – manifestation of art, and through its concord of idea and artistry also one that offered hope for the future.

Jacek Sempoliński, Malarstwo w ASP w latach 1946-1955 [w:] Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie. Zeszyty Naukowe, Zeszyt 1/7/1984, s. 26-30
Fragments of conference paper: ‘Malarstwo w ASP w latach 1946-1955 szkolnictwa artystycznego w Warszawie. 75 lat Akademii Sztuk Pięknych, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie. Zeszyty Naukowe, vol.1/7, 1984, pp. 26-30.