Issue 3(57)/2020

Editorial

A pandemic fosters reflection on a time that passes and leaves many unspecified places and stories that are blurred or suddenly ended. “Blanks, gaps and omissions in medieval art”, to which the latest issue of our quarterly is largely devoted, is a subject associated with the era of the Black Death, but also with attempts to overcome the accompanying civilisational tremendum. Michael Grillo’s text shows how memory transformed into the “Art of Remembrance” influenced the creation of a painting perspective aimed at putting in order the chaos caused by the experiences of the 1348 epidemic, and Romuald Kaczmarek’s article leads an attentive reader through three churches in Wrocław, which have preserved painting, sculpting and architectural traces that are conducive to attempts to reconstruct works that used to be an artistic complement to these interiors. Agnieszka Dziki, on the other hand, takes up the rarely discussed subject of small, often incomplete sculptural forms created around 1500 and forming part of a late medieval collection currently located in Basel.

The next essays concern such important issues as the earliest images of Christ in a perizoma, interpreted by Ika Matyjaszkiewicz as a symbolic connection between Christ’s humanity and His divinity, and – to change the field of art – the role of arcades in the architecture of Bologna, captured in a period as long as nearly thousand years (Francesca Bocchi and Rosa Smurra).

The previous issue of “Quart” was dedicated to artistic journeys. The continuation of this theme we can find in the analysis of the significance of the expedition of two Polish artists – Marek Sobczyk and Jarosław Modzelewski – to Germany in 1984 (Justyna Balisz-Schmelz), and the whole is complemented by a review of the exhibition “Expressions of Freedom. Bunt and Jung Idysz” presented in 2019 at the City Museum in Łódź (Aneta Pawłowska) and by an essay recollection of the creative aura accompanying the last Biennale di Venezia (Monika Braun).

The leading theme of the Venetian exhibition was a saying: “May you live in interesting times”, paradoxically interpreted as a prediction of coming disasters rather than the golden age. The organisers of the Biennial certainly did not expect that they would evoke times that are undoubtedly interesting, but plagued by pandemic trauma. In the future, therefore, we should be more careful when choosing mottoes and slogans, because sometimes a word can turn into a body burdened with a human and morbid void, and not just a mystical and symbolic.

At this point, I would also like to thank Dr. Agnieszka Patała, the originator and thematic editor of this issue, for her fruitful cooperation.

On behalf of the Editorial Board
Prof. Dr. habil. Waldemar Okoń

  Od redakcji / Editorial

SPIS TREŚCI / TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  Spis treści / Table of Contents

3
/Michael Grillo/
  Perspective as structured memory in the wake of the Great Plague of 1348
  Perspective as structured memory in the wake of the Great Plague of 1348. Summary

19
/Romuald Kaczmarek/
  Emptied places. A case study of three churches in Wrocław (of St. James, of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
of St. Elizabeth)
  Emptied places. A case study of three churches in Wrocław (of St. James, of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
of St. Elizabeth). Summary

46
/Agnieszka Dziki/
  Three crucifixes in the Amerbach Cabinet and the incomplete small-scale sculptures around the year 1500
  Three crucifixes in the Amerbach Cabinet and the incomplete small-scale sculptures around the year 1500. Summary

60
/Ika Matyjaszkiewicz/
  Tunika śmiertelności i szata wieczystości. Najwcześniejsze przedstawienia Chrystusa ukrzyżowanego w colobium i w perizonium
  The tunic of mortality and the raiment of eternity. The earliest depictions of Christ Crucified in a colobium and a perizoma. Summary

87
/Francesca Bocchi, Rosa Smurra/
  Bologna and its porticoes: a thousand years’ pursuit of the “common good”
  Bologna and its porticoes: a thousand years’ pursuit of the “common good”. Summary

105
/Justyna Balisz-Schmelz/
  Which Polish? What Neue? What Wilde? Provincialisation of the centre – centralisation of the province
on the example of the Düsseldorf Papers by Marek Sobczyk and Jarosław Modzelewski
  Which Polish? What Neue? What Wilde? Provincialisation of the centre – centralisation of the province
on the example of the Düsseldorf Papers by Marek Sobczyk and Jarosław Modzelewski. Summary

126
/Aneta Pawłowska/
  „A dźwięki naszych bębnów rozpętują nawałnicę istnienia”, czyli wystawa która się odbyła…
  “And the sounds of our drums will unleash a storm of existence”, or an exhibition which took place… Summary

135
/Monika Braun/
  La Biennale di Venezia, czyli o użyteczności (i bezużyteczności) sztuki
  La Biennale di Venezia, or the usefulness (and uselessness) of art. Summary