A Bit Of Polish Culture

Vladimir Posner, Radio Moscow News Announcer

Joe Adamov, Radio Moscow Announcer, Moscow Mail Bag

Radio Moscow Radio Reception Card

Radio Moscow Radio Reception Card

Mieczyslawa FoggaPARK W DUBOJU / THE PARK IN DUBOJ, 1897

RYNEK STAREGO MIASTA W WARSZAWIE NOCA / OLD TOWN SQUARE AT NIGHT, 1892

Targ na Kwiaty

Józef Pankiewicz

DOROZKA W NOCY / HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE AT NIGHT, 1896

NOKTURN - LABEDZIE W OGRODZIE SASKIM NOCA / NOCTURNE - SWANS IN SASKI PARK AT NIGHT, 1894

Friday November 16, 2007

Today I am preparing my lecture for tomorrow on Broadway. I accompanied Pawel to the Savona Pizza Club for lunch and afterwards stopped at Empyk which is the multimedia shop in town. I found a three disk set of Piaf and another disk by Mieczyslawa Fogga with music of 1933 to 1939. While I have been here I have been absorbing Polish arts and culture. My favorite Polish painter is Józef Pankiewicz, of the school of Polish Impressionism. The excellent and informative web site Culture.Pl provides the following about Pankiewicz:

“one of the first Impressionists and Symbolists in Polish art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries…Jozef Pankiewicz was born in 1866 in Lublin and died in 1940 in Marseille…He was one of the outstanding figures of 20th century Polish art. In the 1920s Pankiewicz was the initiator of the Colorist movement in Poland, which was a derivative of French post-Impressionism. As an educator he shaped the artistic stance of an entire generation of Polish painters and graphic artists, above all those who were part of the KOMITET PARYSKI / PARIS COMMITTEE (Capists), a group that included artists of stature like Jan Cybis, Artur Nacht-Samborski, Jozef Czapski, Zygmunt Waliszewski, and Tadeusz Potworowski. … In 1892-1893 the artist abandoned enchanting Impressionistic colors in creating monochromatic harmony in a series of nightscapes. Pankiewicz's nostalgic nocturnes are among the most outstanding works in Polish Symbolism (RYNEK STAREGO MIASTA W WARSZAWIE NOCA / OLD TOWN SQUARE AT NIGHT, 1892; ZAULEK NOCA - WASKI DUNAJ / WASKI DUNAJ LANE BY NIGHT, c. 1892; DOROZKA W NOCY / HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE AT NIGHT, 1896; PARK W DUBOJU / THE PARK IN DUBOJ, 1897). His unusual combination of disappearing forms and bristling light reflections produce a melancholy mood characteristic of the decadent attitudes of the end of the 19th century (NOKTURN - LABEDZIE W OGRODZIE SASKIM NOCA / NOCTURNE - SWANS IN SASKI PARK AT NIGHT, 1894). Shapes, made unreal by nighttime sfumato, become the visual equivalent of the artist's emotional states, akin to those metaphorically yet so accurately expressed in the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé.

In Italian sfumato is derived from the word fumo meaning smoke. In painting it is a technique which overlays translucent layers of color to create perceptions of depth, volume and form. It refers to the blending of colors or tones so subtly that the eve observes no perceptible transition. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have used this technique in his painting The Mona Lisa and possibly the use of this effect is what begs the question of whether she is, in fact, smiling.

Pankiewicz’s handling of night as a subject matter is superb. Night is alive in paintings like my favorite, RYNEK STAREGO MIASTA W WARSZAWIE NOCA / OLD TOWN SQUARE AT NIGHT, 1892. I must admit walking around at night in the centrum of Bialystok looks exactly as if one was in a painting by Pankiewicz. One night in particular, I was walking along on the cobblestones of the city square with Dasia. The cobblestones were glistening in the light of the night, soaked with fresh rain. Dasia tugged at my sleeve and pointed to the landscape in front of us and said “Pankiewicz”. I nodded in agreement. Later that evening I was walking alone and encountered the Russian accordionist. It should be understood that this man is considered by the residents of Bialystok not as a panhandler, but rather as a part of the city centrum, a musician. People pass by and freely drop zlotys into his open accordion case. He smiled as I approached and I hummed a few bars of a favorite Russian song, Midnight In Moscow. I first learned this song as a young boy listening late into the night to my shortwave radio. I would tour the world as I turned the dial. Click here to hear what short wave radio sounded like in my early adulthood. The voices of the world’s capitols filled my ears. Click here for the old Radio Moscow Sign On. Radio Moscow was always loud and clear with its broadcasts to North America. I would listen to Joe Adamov and his Moscow Mailbag Bag program or Vladimir Pozner with the news from Moscow. It was during these broadcasts during the cold war years that I learned song. As I hummed a few bars of the song his smile widened and he began to play the melody for me. I smiled and he began to sing in Russian for me. One of those moments that I will carry forever.

Links to check out!

Polish Culture. PL

Pankiewicz's Paintings