Organizmy pionierskie. Kultura wizualna Szczecina w pierwszych latach po II wojnie światowej

Abstract

Pioneering organisms. The visual culture of Szczecin in the first years after World Word II

This text is an attempt to outline the broad perspective of Szczecin’s visual culture in the first five years after the end of World War II. Adopting the nomenclature of natural sciences, the author metaphorically identities the activities of Polish artists, who arrived in a ruined city (biotope), as a process of biocenosis. References to nature may already be witnessed in the first testimony of Polish interest in the German Hinterpommern: Wacław Boratyński’s illustrations for the book Earth collects the ashes of Józef Kisielewski (1939). To put aside the evidence of German culture in Szczecin, the mayor Jan Zaremba placed emphasis on the landscape in the early urban plans for the city (1945–1947). The land was treated as a tomb of the older, Slavic culture (Marian Tomaszewski’s paintings, interior designs and posters by Stanisław Jeziorański), whose resurrection allowed the migrants to create an illusion of returning to the roots. The visual aspect of domesticating the new lands was similar to the conquest of America, in which the Poles allegedly took part(Tomaszewski’s fresco depicting Jan from Kolno, 1948, as well as his and Kazimierz Podsadecki’s graphic work for the propaganda demonstration “We keep the guard on the Oder”, 1946). Henryk Stażewski in his pseudo-social realist picture The Enchanted Land (1950–1951) created an apotheosis of the conqueror. During its inception, the most active pioneers Tomaszewski and Podsadecki left Szczecin.