Over the centuries, Poland has always been a country in struggle, squeezed between the Germanic nation and the Russian one, which, albeit under different political entities, have made Polish land a terrain of conflict and conquest. In XX Century, the modernity of the real socialistic society has actually brought new problems. The “new” individual had been uprooted from his culture, he had lost his reference values, he had lost his freedom of thought. But, paradoxically, after 1989 there was a risk of becoming addicted to consumerism, another kind of moral decay, no less dangerous than the one people risked under communism. But consumerism also means exploitation of resources and human beings.
Art must push for a return to nature, both for practical reasons of combating climate change and for ethical reasons of inclusion and respect towards every living being. Not a return to the “state of nature”, but an adoption of the practices and thinking of nature to build a new model of society. Paweł Ruszkowski thinks that a strategy for further modernization of Poland is urgently needed, in the construction of educational programs in support of the pro-modernization attitudes present in individual classes. With this in mind, it is important not to forget one’s roots; to build the future it is also necessary to look behind to the past. Entry into modernity can take place by recovering the relationship with nature, not only from a biophysical point of view, but above all mental, imagining nature as a series of practices of harmony, inclusion, respect and coexistence.
Podgórski’s paintings will recreate the thousand shades of the natural environment, immerse the observer in a universe of silence, leaves, monumental trunks, shaded areas; Podgórski’s paintings also celebrate the grandeur of nature, its shapes who recall architecture, echoing Mickiewicz, who was the first to use the term “natural monument” in his Pan Tadeusz. Podgórski pays homage to great landscape painter Stanisław Witkiewicz, but instead of a naturalistic and realistic approach, he chooses magical realism, made of suspended, misty, fairy-tale and introspective atmospheres, which invite to silence and introspection, to consider a new ecology of relationships based on solidarity and inclusiveness.
At the other end of Podgórski’s pictorial investigation, you can find the city which, at least until yesterday, was the antithesis of nature, the celebration of technical and industrial progress, as well as of power and wealth. The city means oppression, combined with hedonism and greed. Podgórski conceives it like a Phoenix who emerges from its own ashes in the middle of the wood; his urban landscapes, which racall modernist painting and the tradition of the still life, create a strong atmosphere that suggests the necessity of a new balance with surrounding nature.
A new ecology of the individual is needed, to find a balance with the modernity and market economy, an ecology where the individual is a living being and not as a “consuming” being. Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski wrote it in 1913: we can reach the pinnacle of cultural development only by carefully respecting and protecting the natural heritage.
Niccolò Lucarelli
