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Title
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At Home/ Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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Description
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Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue s.61-64
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Creator
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Poprzęcka, Maria
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Date
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2014
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Format
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application/pdf
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Identifier
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:6077
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Language
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ang
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Publisher
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Instytut Sztuki PAN
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Relation
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:publication:6505
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Rights
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Licencja PIA
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Subject
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historia sztuki
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Type
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czas.
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Text
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MARIA POPRZĘCKA
I
f we were to ponder for even a moment upon the
ostensibly commonplace expression used daily:
”I’m at home.... I feel at hom e...”, we might reali
se that it evokes one of the greatest values of life. After
all, ”to be at home” signifies not only to reside in one’s
home. It also denotes to be oneself, in harmony with
oneself and all that surrounds us. Moreover, it signifies
an extremely precious feeling of inner peace, an accord
with the world and a spiritual equilibrium.
In European painting - and probably only in that
particular realm - this emotion was expressed in ima
ges. In this case, the homes are not imaginary but, as
a rule, close to the life of the period. Characteristical
ly, paintings depicting interiors in which ”one feels at
home” remain the domain of Netherlandish, German
and Scandinavian art. The reasons are probably nu
merous: the cold that compels to seek a warm refuge,
the burgher culture that envisages the home as a ha
ven, the longing for privacy with a distinctly deline
ated boundary between that which is one’s own and
that which is alien, the need to possess space that is
ours and subjected to us, and, predominantly, the
yearning for a safe refuge in a world of our own, safe,
well-ordered, devoid of the haphazardness of fate,
predictable and closed against external threats.
The first to introduce the interiors of homes were
the Low Countries paintings of the fifteenth century,
making it possible to take a look into the prosperous
and neat chambers in which Mary feeds the Infant,
with all the spiritualia concealed sub metaforis corporalium. There are no signs of sanctity, but ordinary, stur
dy outfitting - fireplaces, benches, pillows, candle
sticks and mirrors endowed with religious significance.
This secular-sacral space is closed to the forces of evil:
in the Merode altarpiece St. Joseph in his carpenter’s
workshop sets traps for mice - the embodiment of dia
bolical forces. The order of the homestead is a reflec
tion of a higher, divine order.
The chamber in which Giovanni Arnolfini cere
moniously stretches out his left hand towards the pre
gnant wife is thoroughly secular but also full of hidden
meanings. The Arnolfini couple celebrate the por
trayed ceremony in the privacy of their home, conce
ived as a site suitable for nuptials. The painting by Jan
van Eyck is endlessly interpreted anew. The indubita
ble fact is that together with the painter-witness of
the event; we have been permitted not only to take
part in an important act but also to share the intima
cy of the bedroom of a married couple, a sphere of the
most protected privacy.
Paintings presenting home interiors create a specific
relation between the depicted world and the spectator.
We are looking at something that is not on view. Seven
teenth-century Dutch paintings of interiors place us in
the ambiguous role of invisible voyeurs. We are not gu
ests but neither do we trespass. Our unnoticed presen-
At Home
ce does not leave behind any traces on the immaculate
ly glistening floors in the pedantic interiors depicted by
Pieter de Hoogh and other masters of Dutch interieurs.
Our intrusion into this world of ideal burgher order
obviously goes unnoticed by the women absorbed in
their simple household chores. Even the little dogs ac
companying them do not detect the presence of a stran
ger. Nothing disturbs the tranquillity. Nonetheless, we
find ourselves in a strangers’ home. Are we invited, or
not? Are we stealing a look, or becoming involved in
a game played with the spectator by the painted image
of privacy? After all, this spotlessness, industriousness
and affluence of the home are demonstrated for our sa
ke. We are supposed to look and admire. It is art that
entitles and invites us to gaze at something which in re
ality is inaccessible to the sight of an outsider.
Another sort of apprehension is created by the
images of home interiors popular in German Roman
tic art and the Biedermeier culture. It was introduced
by the motif of the window, through which a solitary
figure, shown from the interior, looks out. For long,
this particular motif has been perceived as an image
condensing the tension and dilemmas characteristic
for the epoch, constructed upon a fundamental juxta
position between “here” and “there”, and based on
the contrast between distance and proximity. The
window is a border of the conceptions of life and the
world. The inhabited interior, the world created by
man, opens up to the great universe of Nature. It also
offers an opportunity to seek a haven against the
outer world in peaceful daily life, and a likelihood of
tackling its challenges and dangers. The orderliness
and matter-of-factness of the interior are contrasted
with a hazy and conjectural landscape, the concrete with imagination. The window is a threshold but also
a barrier. It divides the domesticated, intimate and fa
miliar refuge from distant, unknown and alien space.
It confronts secure enclosure and openness brimming
with uncertainty. We reside “here” - at home, in
a sheltered haven, but at the same time our gaze is
drawn to “there” - those worlds full of mystery and
unrest.
61
1. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior with Easel and Punch Bowl, no date
2. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior with Woman Seen from Behind, 1903-1904
3. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior. With Piano and Woman in Black, 1901
4. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior with a Reading Lady, no date
5. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Bedroom, 1890
6. Vilhelm Hammershoi, At Woman Reading by a Window, no date
7. Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior with Young Man Reading, 1898!
8. Vilhelm Hammershoi, The Tall Windows, 1913
Vilhelm Hammershoi, In the Bedroom, 1896
M aria Poprzçcka • A T HOME
A t the turn of the nineteenth century, a period of
growing crises of the heretofore principles of creativity
and of approaching artistic revolts and revolutions, art
was not conducive for paintings focused on the peace
and quiet of home life. The exceptions were the repre
sentatives of Intimisme from the circle of the Parisian
Nabists, hedonistically fond of bourgeois wellbeing.
Another isolated and thus unique exception is the oeu
vre of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi, until re
cently forgotten, who remained perfectly indifferent to
the transformations of contemporary art. In willingly cul
tivated isolation he created a totally independent and in
imitable art, private and enclosed in a world of its own.
This is to a great measure a women’s world, seclu
ded within the home, with a frequent recurrence of
the identical motifs of an inhabited interior, empty or
with a solitary figure. Both the address and the model
are known: the artist portrayed his own flat in an old
Copenhagen town house and his wife, with whom
spent his whole life with no children. Nonetheless, the
imagery appears to be suspended outside a definite ti
me and place. Although in successive paintings we re
cognise familiar, meticulously rendered details: empty
grey walls, white varnished doors, sparse and simple
pieces of furniture - the overall impression is that of
something closer to a melancholic vision than a con
crete interior. Hammershoi built the unusual ambien
ce of his paintings by almost totally depriving them of
colour and submerging them in pearly greys, faded be
iges and browns contrasted with black and white.
These neat and simple rooms prove to be even
more intriguing when we compare them with the in
teriors of the epoch, which seemed to closely enfold
the residents and were full of colourful wallpaper,
plush drapes, carpets, soft upholstered sofas, armcha
irs, chaises longues, pillows, jardinières and bric-abrac... Instead of profuse decorations we are dealing
with ascetic moderation, which harmonises with the
painterly form, reduced almost to an architectural
drawing. Even the view from the window does not di
sturb the immaculate, geometric order, and shows
identical windows on an opposite wall in a cramped
courtyard. The pale sunlight on the floor, seeping
through the window bars, has been captured within
the rigour of a perspectivistic diagram. Nevertheless,
paradoxically, these are not interiors lacking “a wo
man’s touch”. Sometimes, there appears in them the
unassuming figure of the lady of the house, always
dressed in black and turned towards us with her back.
In these seemingly cold and impersonal rooms we fe
el her calm and warm feminine presence, though we
never see her face.
Similarly as in the Dutch intérieurs, in the Hammershoi canvases our role as spectators remains unc
lear. Captivated, we are nonetheless embarrassed by
this admittance to the privacy of a home that is both
“being at home” and “for each other”, never merely
for show. But once again, it is art that offers us the key
to a stranger’s home, which, fortunately, remains
unaffected by our presence.
Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior, 1898
64
