Postwar socialist realism
In the early 1950s, Poland imposed socialist-realism doctrine in its arts and culture. Fangor, like many artists, responded to the challenge, convinced of serving a good cause, for instance by creating "peace" slogans such as Korean Mother. "The end of the war, the destruction of Warsaw,ideological battles in culture, the socialist program of rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country", he recalled in an interview with Elizabeth Dzikowska, "all this was the opposite of an individual and solitary admiration for myself and my art. It seemed to me then that what we need is acentrally managed reconstruction exertion. I gave up painting for propaganda."
Years later, art historian Wojciech Włodarczyk contemplated on whether a perfect socialist-realist painting exists. Fangor nearly succeeded, with paintings that were very popular and that received many awards. Korean Mother was presented in December 1951 at the Second National Art Exhibition along with Fangor's Lenin in Poronin, for which he received second prize. Fangor's canvas Figures (1950) is regarded as the most famous image of socialist realism, and is now in the collection of the Museum of Art in Łódź.
The idea of socialist-realist art, it must be remembered, was in rapid change. Art had to be realistic, it declared - everything else was doomed to oblivion. The only question was, which realism was it to represent? Soc-realistic impressarios Juliusz and Helena Kraj criticized Korean Mother as a painting that did not meet the doctrine's "requirements", though their own paintings showed impressionist inspirations. The propaganda capacity of the piece mattered most, and sometimes the title was enough to give an ostensibly non-ideological painting a meaningful connotation. Some artists resorted to portraits, while others turned to applied forms such as graphics or posters, which gave more creative freedom.
Fangor recalled reaching for a different model of realism, saying "I knew that my academic education and innate ability may give suggestions of socialist realism, based on classicism and romanticism of the first half of the XIX century. This style, which is derived from the Renaissance, was widely reproduced over the centuries in churches. Ecclestical art was the only form of art known to worker-peasant masses", the artist said. "I made several paintings of such kind referring to current issues. I received prizes. I became famous and deservedly respected in the artistic community".
"A condemnation of the imperialist war criminals"
Korean Mother is a monumental canvas (nearly 1.5 metres by 2 metres), maintained in almost monochromatic grey and earthy tones. The image has a triangular compositional arrangement. In the foreground is the dead body of an Asian woman, dressed in a bottle-green jacket and a grey skirt. The size of the painting makes it seem painted on a life-size scale. She lies face down, a dramatic gesture that might indicate her struggle for life. A blood stain seems to appear from under her body. A child of 2 or 3 climbs on her back. The background shows mountains and smoke from a burning village.
From the image we can conclude that we are dealing with an armed conflict in Asia in which innocent civilians are killed. Because of the child, we guess that the victim is a young mother. When the painting was created in 1951it was clear for everyone that it concerned the conflict on the Korean peninsula (still an issue today). Korea was the first "hot spot" after the Second World War, a clash between the bipolar geopolitical system's two camps. During the Stalinist era in Poland, it was naturally understood that this woman was the victim of "western imperialism".
Cultural propaganda of the era was carried out by sending painters and writers to places where the era's ideological conflict burst into open armed conflict. Aleksander Kobzdej's series of drawings from Vietnam were created this way, and published in a book with texts by Wojciech Żukrowski, who accompanied Kobzdej in Vietnam. Tadeusz Kulisiewicz also traveled to the Far East, and his drawings, quickly sketched in dangerous conditions, can easily impress, regardless of the ideological meaning.
Fangor did not go to Korea, but managed to capture the image of authentic drama. After the Second National Exhibition of Fine Arts, critic Juliusz Starzyński wrote that:
Among our painters, perhaps only Wojciech Fangor attempts to give a full, dramatic expression to the issue of the struggle for peace. We remember hissuggestive piece, presented at the 'Artists Fighting for Peace'. The same pathos, but even stronger emotional power brings out 'Korean Mother' at the latest exhibition. In this painting Fangor - whether rightly or not - gave up the evocative possibilities of color, maintaining the whole composition in a grey, depressing monochrome. Yet the image of the Korean orphan child's helpless hands and it's tragic prematurely ripened facial expression remains in the viewer's consciousness for a long time - asa condemnation of the imperialist war criminals.
Limited doctrines, future visions
This period of Fangor's work was disavowed in the following years. Bożena Kowalska, promoter of "artists speaking geometry language", writes mildly about it as "an adventure with publicism". But because of this socialist-realism episode, the artist started doubting the possibility of an image becoming media content. Fangor summed up his socialist-realism period, saying "I realized that the painting propaganda meaning displaying pieces in Zachęta's showrooms is not an effective tool."
Together with Stanisław Zamecznik he created an "area study", regarded to as the first "environment" in Polish art. On this occasion he said:
My work evinces a certain doubt of the painting itself as an independent piece, in isolation from the world around us, as a object that can be as easily consumed as a book, that is regardless of the environment in which it is at the moment. It seems to me that you can not expect any revelations from an image as an independent solution.
Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2010