The beginning of the 20th century witnessed radical changes transforming Europe, including Poland. It was then that extreme ideas of individualism, materialism arose, while the immaterial was expressed by the wails of individuals, groups and whole societies. The unique atmosphere of Polish positivism, the atmosphere of the Witkiewicz family, and the artist’s father and art critic in particular, gave birth to a brilliant talent and extraordinary sensitivity incarnated in the person of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, nicknamed Witkacy.

A versatile personality – truly Renaissance modernist – a professional philosopher, artist, mathematician, portraitist, photographer, painter, art theorist and, above all, a visionary of the theater – represent just some of the areas of his authentic artistic activity.

In my presentation, while I will discuss some of the reasons for the uniqueness of Witkiewicz and the ingenuity of his work, I will dispute unnecessary “quirks” and wrong directions in interpretations of his artistry. In particular, I will focus on the “metaphysics” of theater, on the idea of the “unity in multiplicity”, less so on the composition of artwork than on its preeminent subject-matter – the Particular Existence.

Anmeldung: johann.wiede (at) uni-jena (dot) de

Veranstaltet vom Aleksander-Brückner-Zentrum für Polenstudien Jena in Kooperation mit dem Institut für Slawistik und Kaukasusstudien der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Foto: (c) Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain