Piotr Naliwajko: Only Large Paintings

“In the cultural consciousness of the early decades of the twentieth century, the expression ‘the nineteenth century’ acquired a particular inflection. It sounded like an insult; it denoted the quintessence of inauthenticity, the absence of style and taste — a combination of the culture’s glaring materialism and empty pathos.”¹

In the cultural consciousness of the twenty-first century, “the nineteenth century” retains this particular inflection, and the symbols of the period — theatre and opera buildings, sweet as meringues and erected en masse during the century’s final quarter — continue to be regarded with a certain disgust. The painted front curtain, their inseparable attribute, possesses an equally questionable aesthetic status. Ornament became a crime, and so an unnecessarily decorative curtain became a crime too. No wonder most theatres disposed of theirs during the interwar period. Today they are encountered so rarely that, for the sake of clarity, their place and function should be explained.

The principal types of theatre curtain were finally established in the nineteenth century, as was the order in which they were hung. Immediately behind the proscenium arch was usually an iron curtain providing fire protection. Behind it came the main curtain — decorated with a painting and lowered from above, or monochrome and drawn to the sides. The interval curtain came last.

The painted main curtain was the auditorium’s most important decorative element. Embarrassingly, it matched the gilding, crystal chandeliers and plush seats perfectly. It concealed the stage while the audience took their places. It was, as one writer put it, “a prologue to the tragicomedy about to unfold”.² It was also lowered for the long interval and at the end of a performance. Used for centuries, it became an obligatory component of theatre equipment in the nineteenth century. Even puppet theatres acquired one.³ Painted curtains were often purchased together with complete sets of ready-made scenery from specialist firms in Vienna and Berlin. Such curtains usually depicted a landscape — generally a view of the city in which the theatre was located — or, occasionally, busts of famous dramatists and composers painted in chiaroscuro. Curtains made by permanently employed theatre designers, who by virtue of their profession specialised in landscape, looked similar. Yet curtains with figurative scenes painted by artists unconnected with the theatre were valued most highly. “Since theatres abandoned the system of curtains on rollers and introduced framed curtains, an artist has no right to disdain such work. A painting will be as safe here as in any museum — and what museum can give an artist so many viewers? Besides, what contemporary commission other than a theatre curtain allows the brush to sweep across so vast a surface and gives the artist so much opportunity to exercise the imagination?”⁴ Henryk Siemiradzki, the creator of two painted curtains, explained to a correspondent from Novoye Vremya. The enormous format, the “opportunity to exercise the imagination” and the considerable sums attached to such “commissions” attracted many painters, including artists of the stature of Hans Makart and Gustav Klimt, who was astonishingly academic at the beginning of his career. Mythological subjects dominated this category of theatre curtain — Apollo and the Muses, Parnassus, Pegasus — alongside allegories and scenes from famous operas and plays. Among Polish works of this kind, the curtains Siemiradzki painted for the municipal theatres in Kraków and Lviv rank among the finest in their category and have happily survived.

It seems likely that when the theatre in Łódź was being built, its organisers envisaged a so-called grand curtain comparable to the finest Polish works of the kind. The association with Siemiradzki was obvious, especially at the time. The inauguration of his Lviv curtain, widely reported in the press, had taken place on 13 January 1901; it was also “perfectly well known from reproductions on picture postcards, which circulated in their thousands”.⁵ In their category, Siemiradzki’s curtains were among the best. Admittedly, alongside praise, the Lviv curtain also met with devastating criticism from Gabriela Zapolska,⁶ who returned from Paris with a superb collection of paintings by Sérusier, van Gogh, Gauguin and others from their circle, as well as a taste for new painting. Most members of the theatre construction committee, however, probably retained non-modernist tastes. Siemiradzki was likely offered another commission for a curtain, although no documents directly confirming this hypothesis have survived. If this was indeed the case, the artist — already seriously ill and occupied with major commissions⁷ — declined. All that is known for certain is that on 15 September 1901 Siemiradzki, together with Henryk Sienkiewicz, attended the opening ceremony of the Łódź municipal theatre as a guest of honour, and that he did not paint a curtain for Łódź. Received with great honours, he toured “the industrial establishments of Scheibler and the I.K. Poznański joint-stock company”, attended the inaugural performance and, after the show, delivered a speech at the accompanying banquet “in the splendidly decorated ballroom”. He could not, however, be persuaded to make a drawing on a specially prepared wall and merely signed it. A ceremonial breakfast with members of the press was held the following day. At 12.45 Siemiradzki departed “by the Łódź railway train in a first-class saloon provided by the railway management”, receiving a formal farewell on the platform. He was presented with a bouquet adorned with a sash bearing the words “to the master of the brush — the women of Łódź”; “in addition, every lady arrived at the station with a bunch of flowers, thus creating a floral ovation with which Siemiradzki was bid farewell”.⁸

The manuscript of the speech delivered on that occasion survives in the Czartoryski Library. Despite its playful tone, it deserves attention: the text could effectively serve as the description of another curtain. Siemiradzki writes: “I have set down on paper […] what today’s celebration suggested to my heart and imagination. And since an artist’s imagination readily gives form to thoughts, an image has now arisen within it.” Its principal subject is the most obvious one for a painting of this kind — Apollo and the Muses — with additions referring to the Łódź context.

“I see a great, new and resplendent Boat sailing upon the waters of gold-bearing Pactolus. It is full of clamour and festivity. A valiant crew is aboard: strong, prudent, seasoned and persevering people all. Steering the Boat across the treacherous waves of Pactolus, whose bed conceals thousands of underwater rocks beside the gold and whose waters at times swell wildly, is an exceedingly difficult task. It calls for brave and wise helmsmen, capable of gazing into the abyss while simultaneously raising their eyes towards the stars. Woe to those who stare only at the gleam of precious metal: the vessel they command would become irretrievably stranded in the river’s rotting bays, where the water stands still — like life without an ideal. Today the Boat is solemn and festive. The eyes of the crew and invited guests look upwards, their arms extended in greeting to the celestial maidens — the Muses, arriving with the permission of their ruler and Lord of Parnassus. I recognise them: Melpomene the pessimist, from whose lips have continually emerged for centuries variations on the pleasing theme ‘Homo homini lupus est’; Thalia, across whose expressive little face genuine tears and genuine laughter pass like clouds across the sky; Euterpe, radiant with unearthly light and holding a double flute, from which flow now hymns born in heaven and rising heavenwards, now songs of earthly joys and sorrows. The circle of enchantresses is completed by the graceful Terpsichore, with silent lips and eloquent movements.

“‘The Brilliant Illuminator’ — such is Phoebus’s official title on Parnassus — thought it appropriate, when sending his daughters to make a guest appearance in Łódź, to deliver an occasional address. It ran more or less as follows: ‘Remember always to provide wholesome spiritual nourishment, predominantly of native origin. Melpomene, do not colour your tragedies too black: your listeners’ nerves must be spared. A moderate dose of blood and torture. The same goes for black-hearted characters, and… let your favourite Fate no longer reign quite so absolutely. I would advise Thalia not to bite naïve but decent people too maliciously; you may be merciless towards the base and false, even if they are clever. I give Euterpe no special instructions; cast your spell and ennoble, as you know how. But… do not break entirely with Melody. Otherwise, I have no concerns about you. And as for you, little minx’ — here he wagged a meaningful finger at Terpsichore — ‘be merry and charming, but within bounds, within bounds, do you understand? I tell you all this because I have reports that you have not always and everywhere behaved as true celestial maidens should…; things varied there, especially on the banks of the Seine and of other rivers I shall not name here… Go, then, and fulfil your mission, serving Truth, Goodness and Beauty, and do not stray from this path on pain of losing the title of celestial maiden.’”⁹ Well, Siemiradzki was certainly a better painter than writer. Decorated with medals at Salons and World’s Fairs, visited in his studio by crowned heads and joined, after the model of Poland’s three national bards, in a trinity with Matejko and Brandt, this representative of Academicism was soon after his death “counted permanently among the soap-makers”.¹⁰ He was told to paint carriages. He fell from favour for many years. Art history has since done justice to him, as it has to Academicism as a whole: he was unquestionably a painter of international stature, but continues to offend contemporary tastes. And although it is difficult to imagine a curtain better suited to the interior of the theatre in Kraków, it is customary to lament that the designs Wyspiański and Mehoffer entered in the competition were not used. It is also said that, to concentrate before a rehearsal or performance and attain the proper state of mind, actors have to turn their backs on it.

No wonder. Today the opposition seems self-evident: simplicity equals truth, abundance of means equals falsehood. Defined in these terms, the ascetic aesthetic that has prevailed in theatre for years is, like any long-maintained diet, somewhat wearisome.

I think that giving the theatre in Łódź a painted main curtain — and one made by a painter working in a provocatively nineteenth-century style — is an irritating idea. Piotr Naliwajko’s entire exhibition will probably be irritating too, although not critical — or perhaps irritating because it is not critical. At Only Large Paintings, the smallest work is to be the curtain design (70 × 100 cm); in its final form the curtain will measure 5 × 8.2 metres. The design shows that one cannot see it very clearly: perhaps nine symbolic figures forming an asymmetrical and unsettled arrangement. An Astonishingly Non-Industrial Spirit is to be the work’s title, referring to the city’s new cultural prospects. Its scale and dynamic composition invite comparisons with the Baroque. In Łódź, Baroque associations seem wholly out of place.

Why such a curtain? One could surely have tailored one closer to the local spirit. The most sensible course would be to make a curtain in the tradition of Strzemiński’s Unism: the artistic community would appreciate it, the authorities would be pleased and it could safely be shown to primary-school excursions. Technically, it would be simple: all that would be required is to select a piece of canvas with the right dimensions and weave. Complete Unism. It is also difficult to call a sheet of grey canvas kitsch. And the colour is quintessentially Łódź. Leaving Strzemiński aside, the city of Łódź really does sometimes take on the colour of canvas; entire quarters are even the colour of a shroud. But a Realist curtain? An allegorical one? Painted by Naliwajko? With scantily clad figures teeming across its upper reaches? At this size, the most spectacular parts of the body must be around a metre and a half wide. Horror, or the Baroque above the city centre. Art is still occasionally the domain of whim; it remains useless. If it is true that everything is possible in art, then it is also possible to step into the same river again after 103 years — with an appropriately large splash. There is no denying that Naliwajko’s curtain will have nothing in common with Unism. We should therefore probably not expect the beautiful women of Łódź to arrive with bunches of flowers to bid the master farewell, or for “the railway management to provide the artist with a place in a first-class saloon”.

1. H.G. Gadamer, Rozum, słowo, dzieje [Reason, Word, History], ed. K. Michalski, Warsaw 1979, p. 58.

2. G. Zapolska, Słowo Polskie, no. 26, 1901.

3. F. Gregorovius, Wędrówki po Włoszech [Wanderings in Italy], Warsaw 1990, p. 175.

4. Quoted in J. Dużyk, Siemiradzki. Opowieść biograficzna [Siemiradzki: A Biographical Tale], Warsaw 1986, p. 450.

5. Henryk Siemiradzki, Biesiada Literacka, no. 35, 1902.

6. Kurtyna Siemiradzkiego [Siemiradzki’s Curtain], Słowo Polskie, no. 26, 1901.

7. At the time he was working, among other things, on decorative panneaux for the Warsaw Philharmonic.

8. Otwarcie teatru [The Opening of the Theatre], Rozwój, no. 226, 1901.

9. Czartoryski Library, Kraków, manuscript MNK 1588.

10. A.G., O Henryku Siemiradzkim [On Henryk Siemiradzki], Wędrowiec, no. 38, 1905.