en-66 | QUART

Faculty of Historical and Pedagocial Science

Journal financed by the
Faculty of Historical and Pedagocial Science
at the University of Wroclaw

Issue 4(66)/2022

Editorial

For the first time in the long history of our quarterly, the latest issue of “Quart” examines the art of the period between World War I and World War II, looking at phenomena that are not often discussed in periodicals dealing with art history in the traditional sense. The very first article introduces the relationship between architecture and technology, portraying the Berlin of the Weimar Republic era as a “city of lights”, where subsequent years brought increasingly dynamic developments in electrification influencing the forms of artistic activity of the time (Filip Burno). Equally “electrifying” is Jed Rasula’s text, which shows the links between the emerging and increasingly popular jazz and the numerous avant-garde movements not only in America. In order to stay in the swinging rhythm of the 1930s, we present an article by Zofia Załęska discussing the influence of fashion on the Polish cinema of that period, which often used modern dance and songs in film plots written by excellent authors who remain popular until today. The issue of avant-garde activities in Ukraine in the 1920s, which is not very well known in Poland, is introduced by Hanna Veselowska’s text on the ideas accompanying innovative artistic work within the MOB (Mystetske obiednannia Berezil – Berezil Artistic Association). This era is also portrayed by Irina Subotić through the prism of the “Zenit” magazine dedicated to new art, first published in Zagreb and later in Belgrade, and by Tomaž Toporišič, who presents the avant-garde – recovered from the “epoch of oblivion” through contemporary research – that was present and active not only in the centres of the time, such as Paris and Berlin, but also in Central Europe. Karolina Rosiejka’s text devoted to the exhibition of Polish women artists that took place in Bydgoszcz in 1930 is also interesting in this context, showing the numerous, not only artistic, but also social conditions accompanying the first such large-scale presentation of art created by women in our country. The whole is complemented by: Barbara Lewicka’s paper, discussing Thomas Hart Benton’s murals designed for the Indiana State Pavilion for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, and Przemysław Strożek’s article on the impact of propaganda on the image of sporting competitions organised by the totalitarian Axis Powers (Italy, Germany and Japan) between 1934 and 1940.

At this point, I would like to thank Dr. habil. Przemysław Strożek for his efforts in preparing this issue, and I would like to invite you to read the new “Quart”, as numerous utopias are still manifesting themselves in art today, and totalitarian ideas are not unknown in our world plagued by economic and military crises.

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