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 THE
AVANT-GARDES OF CENTRAL EUROPE
Thomas Wiloch on the fresh images and perspective in some
recent works edited by Timothy O Benson
Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930
Timothy O Benson, editor
MIT Press
2002
ISBN: 0262025221
$59.95/£39.95
Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes,
1910-1930
Timothy O Benson and Éva Forgács, editors
MIT Press
2002
$45/£29.95
Seldom does a study of modernist art contain fresh examples of the artwork
or a fresh perspective. But Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange
and Transformation, 1910-1930 edited by Timothy O Benson delivers
both. On page after page are reproductions of artworks never seen before
in the West, while the numerous essays chronicle modernism's impact in
such little-studied countries as Estonia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Latvia,
and Hungary. Important, too, is the detailed information about such apocryphal
topics as Polish Futurism and Czech surrealism.
The book's most important contribution, however, is its delineation of
a fundamental difference in how modernism manifested itself in Central
Europe. Here, in nations newly-independent following-the end of World
War I and the collapse of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman
Empires, the avant-garde ideas of Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, and Futurism
were often used to express nationalistic or religious themes. Finally
able, after many years, to depict the folkways of their native culture
and to express their peoples’ traditional religious beliefs, many
Central European artists put modernist techniques to the service of ideas
and subjects many Western European artists would have rejected as reactionary.
In Poland, for example, where Russian dominance had extended even to
outlawing speaking Polish in public places, we find the Formists. Beginning
in Cracow in 1917 as the Polish Expressionists, the group soon evolved
into a distinctly Polish art movement interested in creating a nationalised
version of modernism. They drew on folk art models of the Podhale mountain
region for the subject matter of their artworks, depicting such traditional
figures as the Madonna and Janosik (the Polish Robin Hood) in a geometric
style that combined elements of Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism. Some
of the ‘naïve’ qualities of folk art are also to be found
in their work.
The Formists' theoretical writings, some of which are gathered in the
companion volume Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European
Avant-Gardes, 1910-1930, edited by Benson and Éva Forgács,
reveal a quite unexpected mode of thinking. In ‘New Forms in Painting
and the Misunderstandings Arising Therefrom’, Formist theorist Stanislaw
Ignacy Witkiewicz argues that the rise of democracy ("the mob"
as he terms it) and industrialisation has driven "metaphysical feelings"
from society, and thus true art, religion, and philosophy as well. "We
live," he writes, "in a frightful epoch...[a] horrible, painful,
insane monstrosity that is passed off as being the evolution of social
progress." In opposition to the "monstrosity" that is contemporary
society, Formists frequently painted on religious themes. Witkiewicz's
own paintings include such titles as ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony’
and ‘Creation of the World’. Formist Andrzej Pronaszko's ‘Procession’
(1926) shows a group of pilgrims rendered reverently in an Expressionist/Cubist
manner. His brother Zbigniew Pronaszko designed a Cubist-style altar for
the Church of the Missionaries in Cracow. To see the techniques of modernism
used in such a manner is jarring and oddly refreshing. We in the West
are unused to such seriousness in our avant-garde artists. Compare their
efforts with, say, Max Ernst's surrealist bedroom design for Nelson Rockefeller
or Salvador Dali's innumerable antics and you see a fundamental difference
only such words as ‘noble’ and ‘dignified’ are
perhaps best able to express, the observer's own religious beliefs aside.
Movements such as Formism had counterparts in other Central European
countries. In Croatia, the Zenitist movement (from "zenit" or
zenith) claimed that the Western avant-garde had grown fossilised and
lacked a spiritual dimension. They called for a rejuvenation of Europe
by the "Barbarian" Slavs, whose fresh, pagan blood would revitalise
an ageing civilisation. A "Balkanization" of Europe was needed,
in which Western capitalism would be replaced with traditional Balkan
culture. Zenitism drew on all modern forms of artistic expression, seeking
to fuse their individual insights at a higher level. As theorist Ljubomir
Mici wrote in The Zenitist Manifesto (1921): "Expressionism, Cubism,
Futurism are dead. / We are an extension of their lineage - to higher
ground."
In practice, Zenitism was a contradictory movement whose art was a combination
of avant-garde techniques common throughout 1920s Europe. The movement's
journal, Zenit, routinely published work by Dadaists, Futurists,
Expressionists, Cubists, and others. For Mici, such contradictions were
less important than the spiritual, utopian goal he saw as the movement's
purpose. Zenitist art, according to Mici, embodied a "spiritual element
of new relations in art." At the same time, because of its concern
for the "Balkanization" of Europe, Zenitism had a strong racial
undertone to it. Speaking of what a good Zenitist needed, Mici listed
such qualities as "metasexual purity" because "the seed
that fertilises must be of pure and unspoiled blood." He explained
further that "Zenitism is the most rebellious act of the young barbarian
race." He argued, too, for "the absolute need for purging and
affirming our racial personality."
In short, Zenitism combined the avant-garde of the 1920s with the racial
ambitions of the Balkan peoples, first, to rid themselves of the dominance
of the West European avant-garde and, second, to establish their own uniquely
Balkan culture which, they believed, would bring all of Europe to a higher,
more vigorous and more spiritual level. This linking of racial, national,
and artistic concerns is unique to the Central European avant-garde.
While the Formists and Zenitists focused on nationalistic and religious
themes, other Central European avant-garde artists followed the usual
call for an international art, one that, by using abstract forms, could
speak a language transcending national boundaries. The essayists in Central
European Avant-Gardes cover their activities in depth. To be frank,
however, it is the artists who bucked this trend and established their
own goals at variance with those of the more internationalist artists
who are of more interest, simply because their existence has never before
been documented. And too, with opposition to globalisation on the rise,
these unsung artists of Central Europe have a wider potential audience
than ever before.
The companion volume Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European
Avant-Gardes, 1910-1930 contains translations of manifestos, essays,
and articles written by those theorists and artists involved in the various
Central European avant-gardes. Most of these writings are seeing translation
into a Western European language for the first time. The importance of
both of these books, and the role they will play in fleshing out the full
story of twentieth century European art history, cannot be overestimated.
Benson, Forgács, and all of their collaborators deserve a hearty
and well-deserved thanks for their herculean efforts.
THOMAS WILOCH - 27 September 2002
Thomas Wiloch has been published in Rain Taxi,
Bloomsbury Review, Publishers Weekly, Small Press
Review, and has also published several collections of poems. His website,
containing a number of his reviews and articles, is Codes &
Chaos.
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