Witkacy - drug inspired artist

[Bonobo]

Stanis³aw Ignacy Witkiewicz, a.k.a. "Witkacy" (February 24, 1885 – September 18, 1939) was a Polish playwright, novelist, painter, photographer and philosopher.



More:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ignacy_Witkiewicz



Drugs in artistic works of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939) on the Background of polish modernism at the turn of XIX and XX century].
[Article in Polish]
P³onka-Syroka B.
Source

Instytut Historii Nauki PAN, Wroc³awiu.
Abstract

At the turn of XIX and XX century in the Polish artistic circles it became widespread a modernist moral model, created among other by Baudelair's, Mallarme's Rimbaud's and Verlain's works. One of its elements was striving for getting into different status of conscience with help of narcotics and alcohol. A strong presence of narcotics in life of the Polish artistic circles at a time of mocernism has been a subject to analysis carried out by Tadeusz Boy-Zeleénski in his work "Cyganeria krakowska" [Crakow Bohemians]. He has shown their role of easing emotional tensions connected with striving for fame and with a competition. Underestimation, misery and social alienation of some artists have been inducing them to search in narcotics the way to artificial reality. In some Polish artistic circles the narcotics have become a stimulant of cult character (see Antoni Lange "Ballady pijackie", Stanis³aw Przybyszewski "Synowie ziemi", "Moi wspó³cze¶ni", Henryk Sienkiewicz "Bez dogmatu"). Stanis³aw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939), Polish painter and dramatist, creating in the first half of XX century, has continued a tradition of modernist customs, taken over by him from the artistic circle he was brought up. He used narcotics as direct creative stimulus, inspiring creation of his paintings, including a superb series of portraits. In paintings made under influence of the drugs, Witkiewicz was placing the symbols of stimulants taken earlier. He has specially appreciated cocaine, though he has been using also opium, morphine, hashish and mixes of various psychotropic agents. Paintings of Witkacy are characterised by original colouring of a very strong artistic expression. ...





































www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Witkacy/Index.htm

artychryst.soup.io/since/109562895?mode=own&newer=1

[valpomike]

Nice, but a bit far out for me. This looks like the work of a drug user.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Jul 5, 2011 1:25:46 GMT 1 valpomike said:

Nice, but a bit far out for me. This looks like the work of a drug user.
Mike

The problem with many masterpieces of art is they all look like drug-inspired.

[jeanne]

Jul 5, 2011 7:12:38 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Jul 5, 2011 1:25:46 GMT 1 valpomike said:

Nice, but a bit far out for me. This looks like the work of a drug user.
Mike

The problem with many masterpieces of art is they all look like drug-inspired.

When you think of it, what do drugs do other than play upon the nervous system?... someone who is an artist could be a very sensitive person and have a heightened sensitivity that mimics the effects of drug use. I'm just saying that it's possible, I'm not citing any examples...

[pjotr]

Fact is that he could draw and paint well. He was a friend and colleage of another great Polish painter, writer and graphical artist Bruno Schulz (July 12, 1892 – November 19, 1942). It looks like Witkacy was hunted by demons or ghosts.

[Bonobo]

May 20, 2013 14:50:21 GMT 1 pjotr said:

It looks like Witkacy was hunted by demons or ghosts.

[Bonobo]

May 20, 2013 14:50:21 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Fact is that he could draw and paint well. He was a friend and colleage of another great Polish painter, writer and graphical artist Bruno Schulz (July 12, 1892 – November 19, 1942). It looks like Witkacy was hunted by demons or ghosts.

Demons of artistic inspiration you mean?

Witkacy`s selfies from 70-80 years ago:

[Bonobo]

A few "traditional" portraits by WITKACY:

[pjotr]

Maybe Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz forsaw his own very tragic end.

Witkiewicz was close friends with Karol Szymanowski and, from childhood, with Bronisław Malinowski and Zofia Romer. Following a crisis in Witkiewicz's personal life due to the suicide of his fiancée Jadwiga Janczewska, he was invited by Malinowski to act as draftsman and photographer on a 1914 expedition to Oceania, a venture that was interrupted by the onset of World War I. A happen-stance citizen of the Russian Empire, Witkiewicz went to St Petersburg and was commissioned as an officer in the Imperial army. His ailing father, a Polish patriot, was deeply grieved by the youngster's decision and died in 1915 without seeing his son again.


Witkiewicz fiancée Jadwiga Janczewska who commited suicide ( pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_Janczewska )

Witkiewicz witnessed the Russian Revolution while stationing in St Petersburg. He claimed that he worked out his philosophical principles during an artillery barrage, and that when the Revolution broke out he was elected political commissar of his regiment. His later works would show his fear of social revolution and foreign invasion, often couched in absurdist language.

Shortly after Poland was invaded by Germany in September 1939, he escaped with his young lover Czesława to the rural frontier town of Jeziory, in what was then eastern Poland. After hearing the news of the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Witkacy committed suicide on 18 September by taking a drug overdose and trying to slit his wrists. He convinced Czesława to attempt suicide with him by consuming Luminal, but she survived.

Witkiewicz had died in some obscurity but his reputation began to rise soon after the war, which had destroyed his life and devastated Poland. Czesław Miłosz framed his argument in The Captive Mind around a discussion of Witkiewicz's novel, Insatiability. The artist and theater director Tadeusz Kantor was inspired by the Cricot group, through which Witkiewicz had presented his final plays in Kraków. Kantor brought many of the plays back into currency, first in Poland and then internationally.