On the Painting of Teresa Tyszkiewicz

All that remains for me to do is supplement Professor Zofia Libiszowska’s excellent and extraordinarily interesting recollections of Teresa Tyszkiewicz with a few comments on the artist’s painting. I do so with great joy and emotion because I was fortunate enough to be among those closely connected with her, her work, and her social and public activity in our city. Teresa Tyszkiewicz was a professor at the State Higher School of Visual Arts in Łódź and the institution’s most outstanding painter; yet she did not teach painting, only textile-pattern design. Similarly, Strzemiński, the greatest painter in that milieu, did not teach painting but art history and the fundamentals of composition—subjects that were, after all, secondary. Such things happen, regrettably. Fortunately, we had no shortage of happy opportunities for private conversations and meetings, because Teresa Tyszkiewicz readily invited people to her home for discussions about art, listening to music together and philosophical reflection. More than once, conversation turned to the difficulties of life and of practising independent art at a time that was often far from favourable to it.

As far as painting is concerned, the artistic life of Łódź in this century was dominated by two people. During the first half of the century, Władysław Strzemiński was the leading figure of the Łódź milieu. His life and work are more widely known, also because of a recent academic session held in Łódź in connection with the centenary of his birth and the fortieth anniversary of his death. He was the most important and probably the most radical artist of the Polish and European interwar avant-garde. It was he who introduced Polish art into world art. For several decades, he has been the subject of the keenest interest and admiration among both creative circles and the wider cultural public. The second half of our century, meanwhile, was dominated by Teresa Tyszkiewicz, who was over a decade younger than Strzemiński and the same number of years older than the first post-war generation of painters. She was one of the most outstanding Polish women painters and one of the most compelling artistic personalities in this part of post-war Europe. I do not mention these two artists almost in a single sentence without reason. On the one hand, they were the two most outstanding artistic individuals in the history of this city; on the other, they were two entirely different personalities who professed two completely different conceptions of art.

Strzemiński was a rationalist, and his art arose from Russian and international Constructivism. He had spent his youth in revolutionary Russia, and one of his spiritual masters was Kazimir Malevich, whose close associate he was for a time. Throughout his life, Strzemiński was an extraordinarily creative artist and a dynamic organiser of artistic life in Poland, thereby making an enormous contribution to awakening modern spirituality in our country; he also created many artistic facts of great importance to us. I wish to mention only Unism, the principal source of pride for Poles, because it is gaining ever greater recognition in Europe and the world. This part of Strzemiński’s activity is superbly represented by the holdings of the Museum of Art in Łódź, which he in fact created. At heart, this is an intellectual art that places strong emphasis on the role of consciousness in the creative process and in the reception of a work of art. During the first half of our century, there persisted a fairly widespread conviction that, through the force of its ideology and intellectual powers, modern art should break traditional aesthetic beliefs that no longer corresponded to humanity’s new consciousness. Avant-garde art in particular was to wrest us from philistine prejudices that painting should illustrate events and describe the physical world.

Teresa Tyszkiewicz was equally intellectually active and deeply engaged with various convictions arising from philosophising and studying European thought. Professor Libiszowska mentioned her lively interest in the philosophical thought of Teilhard de Chardin; I would add that she read the writings of Carl Gustav Jung with equal interest. She differed fundamentally from Strzemiński in being an intuitionist. It is a very fortunate coincidence, or perhaps a regularity of history, that two such different and outstanding personalities in this city represented two different artistic, intellectual and emotional attitudes: rationalism and intuition; precision of formulation and openness to the unconscious; extraordinary consistency and orthodox abstraction on the one hand, and drawing freely upon chance and serendipity on the other. These two artists complemented one another, but when direct personal contact occurred, they found it difficult to communicate. As a matter of principle, Strzemiński had to reject every proposition that drew art away from its intellectual current; in his mouth, the accusation of intuitionism was simultaneously a biting, destructive epithet and a dismissive rejection of any surrender to Romantic obscurity. In this he was mistaken. When their dispute is viewed not as a direct ideological clash but from a broader historical perspective, it becomes clear that the arguments were distributed fairly evenly on both sides. Strzemiński was right when, in his time, he emphasised the need for artistic consciousness, and Teresa Tyszkiewicz was right when, several years later, she stressed the role of intuition and the significance of spontaneous gesture, which expand us and enrich the human spiritual sphere.

I would like to conclude these few general remarks here. Their purpose was to show the perspective of the ideological dispute between the two most outstanding artistic personalities in this painting milieu.

You will now have an opportunity to see several photographic portraits of Teresa Tyszkiewicz. I shall then discuss selected reproductions of her paintings, and I hope I shall succeed in showing them to you not so much from an anecdotal perspective as through their formal construction. I place particular emphasis on this because, for both Władysław Strzemiński and Teresa Tyszkiewicz, form is the foundation of a work of art. Tyszkiewicz said that form precedes content: form arises first, and only later do we fill it with content. This is a very modern way of understanding the creative process and the reception of a work of art.

In one of the most beautiful photographs of Teresa Tyszkiewicz, taken by Ireneusz Pierzgalski, we see her portrait from 1976 (slide 1). She was seventy at the time, and her finest paintings from the Blind Roads cycles still lay ahead of her. The next photograph was taken by Mr Sławek Boss (slide 2) and appears in the catalogue of Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s 1989 painting exhibition in Łódź. The third photograph (slide 3) is very blurred because you are looking at a large photographic enlargement of a tiny frame from an amateur 8 mm film. The fourth photograph (slide 4) shows a portrait of Teresa Tyszkiewicz drawn by our colleague Leszek Rózga towards the end of the artist’s life. The next two photographs (slides 5 and 6) show details of her exhibition at Krzysztofory in Kraków in 1989.

I would like to add that although relations between the most outstanding artists before the war were not always friendly, after the war the finest painters respected one another, liked one another or at least tolerated one another. Kantor, for example, despite his considerable egocentrism, invited colleagues from all over Poland to exhibit at the gallery he ran at Krzysztofory. Artists from Łódź were among those who showed there, and Teresa Tyszkiewicz also had a solo exhibition. The Krzysztofory Gallery was, and remains today, one of the three or four significant galleries in Poland.

From the artist’s rich body of work, I would like to discuss several selected paintings in somewhat greater detail. Here is an early painting from 1945 (slide 7), probably dating from her journey to Paris. It reveals fresh impressions from seeing the Surrealists’ paintings and certain influences of Cubism, which, thanks to Picasso’s dynamically developing work, could still inspire many painters. The next painting (slide 8) dates from 1949, and those Cubist influences remain visible. We should remember that this was a period when artists travelled to Paris as though to Mecca, because the most outstanding European artists did indeed gather in the French capital and every artistic revolution began in Paris. In subsequent decades, Paris gradually lost its importance and today is merely one of many artistic metropolises. American art came to the fore, New York began to lead the transformations of world art, and other European capitals grew in importance; among them, the dynamic galleries of West Germany began to play an increasingly significant role.

The third painting I am showing you dates from 1954 (slide 9). I do not wish to hold your attention on this early period of Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s painting any longer, because it was a period of searching and the surprising form of her later work had not yet fully crystallised.

The next several reproductions show the evolution of the artist’s painting in a direction inspired by Tachisme and gestural art (slide 10). Only now did the formulation of her own artistic programme begin; her artistic credo was becoming clear and conscious here, finding expression in a series of works outwardly resembling what was taking place in parallel in the West. Yet when we penetrate the artist’s intentions more deeply, we can see that these paintings already reveal an aspiration to give form a meaning extending beyond the simple expression of gesture, to make it a living symbol and endow it with expression and significance. (Let us recall Strzemiński’s formulation from thirty years earlier: ‘A work of visual art expresses nothing. A work of art is not a sign of anything. It exists in and of itself.’) Tachisme, or gestural painting, was sometimes described as Abstract Expressionism, but Tyszkiewicz gradually lost interest even in this kind of Expressionism. She was arriving at form as a sign, a symbol of reality that was not necessarily material—on the contrary, almost always spiritual. Outwardly, it somewhat resembled Japanese writing or calligraphy because it was the gesture of the brush and the thinking hand, containing the expression of personality. This painterly form is a constructed symbol, a sign entering beyond the immediacy of gesture itself, which expresses only the dynamics of the unconscious.

Here is another stage in an evolution aiming, as can clearly be seen, to free gesture from certain unconscious automatisms and give it a form capable of evoking a message that is as precise as possible, though ambiguous (slide 11). Indeed, the importance of the symbol lies in the fact that, unlike conventionalised allegory, it is polysemous, contains various and sometimes unexpected possibilities, and creates broad interpretative opportunities.

You now see a painting from 1965 (slide 12). This marks the beginning of the mature period in Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s work, which would culminate in the Blind Roads cycle. It is painting that proceeds from gesture and from form endowed with an intensity of effect, yet aims towards organising the plane and composing tensions. To see this better, I should perhaps remind you that every pictorial plane, more or less explicitly, contains certain constant elements with specific meanings. Every plane, particularly a rectangular one, has a vertical and a horizontal axis dividing the picture into left and right, and top and bottom. These four quarters are four elements of the pictorial plane with entirely different emotional and semantic connotations. The top is always associated with lightness and the sky; the bottom with the heavy earth; the horizontal axis with the horizon—even when the picture is not a landscape. The right-hand side is active because of the right hand’s greater dynamism; the left-hand side is a retreat, a more discreet and restrained attitude towards the canvas and the world it depicts or symbolises. Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian and another representative of the international interwar avant-garde, speaks in an extraordinarily interesting way about these and other fundamental elements of painterly form in his book Point and Line to Plane. Returning to Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s painting, let us notice that each of the quarters into which the two principal axes divide the canvas is constructed differently. The lower left, the least active, is completely empty; the upper right, where the most is happening, is the most dramatic; the upper left and lower right are much more discreet, but they too are interestingly differentiated from one another. These four quarters create the fundamental contrast of form that enables the picture to be organised and modifies the intensified gesture of the hand, guided by the play of the unconscious and subjected to the action of intuition. Such organisation of the picture arises from, as it were, natural expressive values contained in the elementary construction of the canvas surface itself. When we now look at smaller and less concealed elements of the painting, we see another kind of differentiation: the contrast between vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. These three linear elements work together to construct spatial relationships. Even when a picture contains no vertical or horizontal, the diagonal itself, juxtaposed with the vertical and horizontal edges of the painting, strongly suggests space through its analogy with linear perspective. In the painting we are analysing, we essentially see straight lines set at different angles to one another and suggesting a space in which curves appear from time to time. This is another contrast of form, only tentatively introduced here. In Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s later paintings, the opposition of curve and circle would become the fundamental formal contrast and principal subject of the composition. We can also say of the next painting (slide 13) that it consists of a horizon, top and bottom. Yet this is an interesting reversal of the situation normal to landscape, a conscious negation of it, because this is not an ordinary landscape. We are accustomed to the bottom being heavy earth and the lighter sky being above; here the opposite is true. The top is heavy and dark, while the bottom is light and bright. This is because the picture is not an illustration of the ordinary arrangement of landscape elements. Although the composition is based on the horizon line here too, the whole is treated in a distinctly anti-naturalistic manner. This is an important compositional device in all abstract painting liberated from the function of describing the naturalistic world. It has been applied very consciously in this painting by Teresa Tyszkiewicz.

Here is another painting (slide 14) from the same period. The contrast of form that I have been trying to discuss throughout consists in juxtaposing broad horizontal lines, like successive planes of some space, with small accompanying elements and a single large flourish, which acquires a special significance also because it is unique. It seems to me that this decides the picture’s drama and maintains its tension. If we covered it, removed it or imagined it absent, only a fairly dull repetition of what was already visible would remain. Everything that appears—all these horizontals and the small elements accompanying them—serves to bring out this one line, this free gesture inscribed within the highly architectonic structure of the whole painting.

In the next painting (slide 15), the form is clearly based on a contrast between curves and straight, principally diagonal lines, with the exception of one line dividing the composition into two parts, perhaps to reveal the difference between the left and right halves of the canvas. They differ both in expression and in the way they construct space. Probably because of this, the left-hand side draws towards us, while the right recedes and opens onto distant planes. Here too you can see four quarters created by one vertical and one horizontal division, the latter slightly disturbed by two diagonals on the left. In this painting too, the lower-left quarter is empty. This need not have been consciously devised and may arise from an intuitive understanding of the pictorial plane’s internal structure: the left-hand side and the bottom express flight backwards and fear. Everything that represents activity is symbolised by the right-hand side—a march forward—and by looking upwards: such is our natural activity in life.

And here, in my view, is one of Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s most beautiful paintings (slide 16). It hangs in our Museum of Art in Łódź and is an ornament of the collection; placed alongside works by artists from around the world, it shines there like a mysterious star. In it, we see a delicate reminder of the existence of verticals and horizontals, as a point of reference that makes the departure from these rigours visible. The painting acquires a strange spatial drama through the contrast between small elements arranged in horizontal rhythms and several large, thick lines. Looking at this picture, we can imagine different things, and essentially nothing prevents us from doing so. While working, however, the painter does not try to represent either her own image or anyone else’s, but constructs a form capable of stimulating the imagination into activity. Our spiritual activity and our conscience are stimulated by every good art, and it allows us to become aware of our fate and face life’s adversities and afflictions with dignity. This painting is one of the most beautiful examples of the exceptional form of prayer that a picture can be. For Teresa Tyszkiewicz, it was certainly a justification of life, a courageous posing of ethical problems—of moral responsibility for her own and for our human existence. It is also one of the most beautiful symbols of human freedom.

Similarly, in the next painting from 1970 (slide 17), we can clearly see that the concern is a contrast between the horizontals predominating in the picture—some drawn very rigorously with a ruler, others escaping this rigidity by being drawn freehand—and several curves. The horizontal lines may symbolise the flow of life, the passing of everything; the several curves resemble a few attempts of ours to do something along the way, amid this transience, that would affirm us in life and leave a trace of our existence.

Here is another painting from the same year, 1970 (slide 18), constructed in a very similar way, even more economical and almost empty. It recalls Strzemiński’s directive, which he tried to instil in us students: minimum form—maximum content!

The third painting from the same year (slide 19) is also very beautiful and economical. Its reproduction appears on the cover of the catalogue of Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s final exhibition in Łódź. Like the previous work, it is based on several almost horizontal, freely drawn thick lines—some of which pass subtly into curves—and thin freehand curves contrasting with them. The dramatic tensions between these few lines construct everything that constitutes the painting’s content.

This large painting (slide 20) from the same period is likewise a new version of straight lines joined with rhythmically repeated curves, a new variation on the contrast between thick linear forms and thin lines.

This painting (slide 21) was made ten years later and probably belongs to our museum, although it is not on display. It is a dense structure, a spatial mesh of thicker and thinner straight lines, in which curves resembling angels’ wings appear here and there. Against the rigid constructions, which recall a metropolitan landscape, they surprise us with their festive quality.

Here is an example of a painting from the late period of Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s work (slide 22). It somewhat resembles the earlier paintings more closely connected with gestural painting. This does not mean, however, that it lacks construction, as our practised eye can easily see. If someone wished to see a winter landscape in it, for example, they would probably not be mistaken. Something like this can be seen on earth. Yet this drawing is not an illustration of any particular landscape. Above all, it is a landscape within our soul, in winter or spring; it is the memory of a landscape and the sum of all landscapes.

I shall now show you several other paintings from the final period of the artist’s life (slides 23, 24, 25 and 26) in order to illustrate with other examples what we discussed earlier. The last of those just shown is a beautiful example of a variation on the compositional schemes discussed above. Instead of a series of vertical lines, we see them inclined as though in perspective, and beside them two horizontals and one energetic curve binding the whole composition together, without which it would probably fall apart. The curve constructs this picture not only by contrasting with the straight lines placed within the pictorial field, but also by standing in energetic opposition to the four sides of the canvas.

To conclude, I shall show you two more paintings (slides 27 and 28). The second, from 1989, is based on diagonal lines and a double ribbon-line, as well as more strongly accented short lines in the centre of the picture. These construct a triple, odd-numbered accent that contrasts with the ribbon’s double line and the four sides of the picture, which introduce even-numbered values. The ribbon winding through the painting is perhaps a road, perhaps a river—perhaps… Everyone has the right to interpret it in their own way. To me it is a symbol of the spiritual path and the river of time in which we are immersed.

In my view, Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s work is the most outstanding achievement of the Łódź milieu after Władysław Strzemiński, while she herself is the city’s most compelling artistic personality. Her painting deserves far greater recognition and popularity on account of its clarity of conception, simplicity of means and the uncompromising way in which the artist pursued her own artistic ideas. They corresponded with everything taking place around the world, yet they were not a reflection of fashionable currents but her own original contribution to modern art in Poland. Teresa Tyszkiewicz is the second personality after Strzemiński, and an equally powerful spirit within this painting milieu. She happily complements Strzemiński’s Constructivist art with an extraordinarily important element in the life of every human being and every artist: intuition and the deep strata of the unconscious, to which we have no access through our modest intellect, but only through symbols charged with powerful emotions. The mind must be cultivated and used, but it is insufficient to express the fullness of our spirituality. Teresa Tyszkiewicz shows us how a particular constructive thought can be harmoniously combined with the tension arising from an awareness of the living sources of imagination that spring from unconscious spiritual life.