Were they really “rebels”? The Munich exhibition “Silent Rebels. Polish Symbolism around 1900”

As the end of the First World War approached, and as internal battles were fought for the restoration of the Polish nation, the (apparent) depictions of “Polonia” increased in number. Malczewski shows female allegories of “Slavery”, “War” and “Liberty” in a clear and direct sequence in a triptych (1917, Fig. 37 . right). In “Pythia” (1917, Fig. 40 . ), Godetzky writes that the auguring priestess of the Delphic oracle slips “as it were into the role of Polonia”.[82] In “The War and Us” (1917–1923, title image . ), which he began in Italy and completed in Poland long after the country had gained independence, Okuń shows himself and his wife walking through the final years of the war, accompanied by an old, white-haired woman who personifies hunger, disease and death, with snakes and butterflies in the background as symbols of the enemy threat and joyous hope. 

Even after a thorough examination of the exhibition and catalogue, no evidence of “rebels” was found. Furthermore, the over-simplified titles of the individual chapters in the exhibition catalogue tend to misrepresent the core of the problem. The term “Young Poland” also remains a mystery until the end, presumably in the hope that through more frequent use, its meaning will become clearer among the general public and readership. This aside, with its large number of artworks, the exhibition expands and supplements our understanding of European Symbolism in an astonishing way, and places artists centre stage who are largely unknown in Germany. Knowledgeable visitors to the exhibition will encounter numerous “old acquaintances”, whose works have been shown elsewhere in Europe in recent years.[83] Nearly all the works can be viewed online in the digital collections of the Polish national museums or websites in the public domain.

Axel Feuß, July 2022

Exhibition catalogue: Stille Rebellen. Polnischer Symbolismus um 1900, edited by Roger Diederen, Albert Godetzky and Nerina Santorius. With contributions by Agnieszka Bagińska, Albert Godetzky, Michał Haake, Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha, Agnieszka Rosales Rodríguez, Nerina Santorius and Agnieszka Skalska, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle München, Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2022, 300 pages.

All links in the notes were last accessed in July 2022.