… 'Porębski constructed a more comprehensive conception to interpret the creative attitudes of the twentieth century artist. He set four notions of Greek origin on two axes – bios versus logos, and pathos versus ethos . The axes are coordinates for artists' attitudes at different moments of the twentieth century. These notions also form a circle, suggesting that the whole way art had passed since nineteenth century modernism to the post avant-garde had come to its starting point.
The initial notion is bios – the biography understood as the price which must be paid for being an artist. Van Gogh, Gaugin or the Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski are those to whom this notion may concern. Then, there comes the stage of ethos , the moment of the artist extolled over reality into the area of conceit, where Picasso is an example. Then, as an alternative to ethos, there comes logos as a need for a logical and rational system. And this is the field of avant-garde utopia.
All lead to a break down in the area of pathos.
So, this is the crisis point , the stage of catastrophe, the moment of the conclusion that the whole target of all previous systems is nowhere. And what is left after such an experience? There is only the possibility to observe one's life, the return to bios, but with a distance of the whole life...'
An extract of a text by Piotr Bernatowicz "I'm leaving the painting (Wychodzę z obrazu)" using Porębski's diagram to explain Kantor's art. |