Juliusz Gałkowski (historyk, krytyk sztuki): The Annunciation is the first mystery of the rosary. This fact alone presents us with a problem: what does it mean to paint a mystery? How is it possible?
Jarosław Modzelewski: I think that is actually a problem which applies to every type of art. For me, there is a certain similarity here between the mystery that needs to be considered while praying the rosary and the mystery that is somewhere in the background of art, including painting. It is known that when painting, one uses a certain language, tools, signs resulting from culture and its current state – but also those handed down by tradition. So these are some definable tools, but in fact practicing art – I particularly mean painting here, which is closest to me – is always about facing something incommunicable, something that cannot be described in words. Therefore, the problem of mystery is inherent in art and in image. It is an influence which means that when we look at an image and even break it down into prime factors, naming them somehow, something still remains that is difficult for us to define. We either get it or we don’t. Such is the nature of painting – some things reach the recipient, other ones don’t…
The point is that we are always looking for something in art. Hence the solution to this problem seems quite simple to me, because I am a painter who touches upon mystery, but any attempts to paint it will never solve it or harm it. In fact, it is the very nature of mystery that we are powerless against it. It is stronger than us and our artistic work.
So, in your view, is a painting supposed to explain the mystery, make it approachable, or is it simply to confront us with it and force us to accept that it will not explain anything?
Of course, a painting won’t explain anything. That’s not its task. That is the role of theology, its language and method of operation.
However, there is the problem of contemporary creativity. Its language is essentially different from the pictorial language used four or five hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the current one has detached itself from the commonly used dictionary. It is just the way things are, there is nothing we can do about it… The only thing left for us to do is to break away from it and try to return to old ways of painting, to readability, i.e. a kind of realism or illustration. One can also try to be in harmony with what painting is today. With what painting is to oneself.
It is quite clear that when I paint, I do not leave my own self somewhere else, somewhere in the entrance hall, but I paint with the means that are obvious to me.
Allow me to interrupt here. In the current debate on religious painting and sacred painting, a thesis has appeared that we should not ignore what the world has achieved over the last several dozen years. That those are completely new media, and the use of classical painting – to use a technical expression – is a mistake in the sense that artists have a specific “duty” to use those new forms.
If I were using those new media – for example, making films – or photography or installation, perhaps I would approach the topic using the said tools. But I am a painter and I use imaging, I refer to its potential, possibilities, its agency in reception.
Yet it is not some closed-off path. I think that with every tool of contemporary art you can somehow approach and reach religious art, if you want to or need to.
But if – just because we live in this particular era, here and now – I were to reject what I use due to some trends or fashions, now that is out of the question. Especially since I have already rejected those tools in art. Maybe I do not have the ability to use them properly or they simply do not affect me. I believe that painting has a certain continued power that lies in the word “mystery”.
And how does that power manifest itself?
I guess it does in the fact that painting is, to some extent, independent of the artist. We know many things, there is still much to discover and develop in our technique. But there is always an element of chance, something unpredictable. Even if we were to have a precise design, a plan of what the image should be, the image does in some way, during its materialization, reveal its own independence, its autonomy…
And that means grappling with the image. I want to lead it according to my intention, but it stands out for its independence – as if by the nature of its means: material ones, such as paints, or other factors. And I never know for certain which one of us will win with our ideas. Often, all that work is about surrendering to what the image shows. It begins to follow its own path, giving suggestions, for example the location of a certain colour. And that causes us to suddenly feel a need to use a different colour, which may not be consistent with our original idea, but, surprisingly, turns out to be the right one.
The word “annunciation” means giving a message. How have you addressed that issue? How do you “visually understand” this concept?
You could say that I was prepared for this topic. Many years earlier I had made a painting called “Sudden News”. The topic was completely different, but there is a certain similarity to be found in the way of approaching the problem. It was a scene showing two people interacting in a very simple, basically empty space. And it is the same in the painting “The Annunciation” – the idea is to show the entire scene not through details, but through the relationship of the people presented.
For me it was important to reduce some of the noise of the world, the visual noise, to simple solutions. Someone enters, someone leaves, someone reaches for something or performs another basic activity. Besides, my painting has been revolving around such ideas, searching for states or stories that contained some generalization. The idea is to extract certain situations from reality that seem to mean something. To send a certain message which includes a surprise, a moment that changes everything.
It was never my intention to turn this event into something extraordinary, an eruption, to give it the character of a majestic scene, something astonishing. Even when I notice that extraordinary nature, I look for tools to show that it is actually simple and ordinary. Someone comes and says something… Of course, we know what he says and what results from it, but I am fascinated by the absolute naturalness of that moment, as in some specific reality it was an ordinary gesture. Someone came in, a stranger, conveyed something. And it all happened in a prosaic situation…
But it is an event of cosmic proportions.
Well, yes, the greatest phenomenon, even visually – at least for me – is that this cosmic event took place just like that. Someone appears at the cottage, there is a girl, a message is conveyed, the message is carried out. My materialization of this cosmic event is thus prosaic. We have an interior, two people, and the relationship between them is as simple as possible. Perhaps it could be even simpler. The problem, however, is to encapsulate it in a visual form. What I wanted to do was to strip this event of any unusualness.
Please forgive me if the question appears impertinent, but is that painting more of an “Ave Maria” or “Fiat” scene, more of a “Hail Mary” or “let it be done to me according to your word”?
I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I wanted to show Mary’s reaction – and it is visible, because she makes certain gestures. But I had no specific intentions, no clear decisions that it would be this or that moment. It’s probably somewhere in-between…
To return to the iconography of the image: two figures, a very simple interior, and tradition gives us great opportunities to create complex interiors, either a room or a temple.
Yes, that is the language we have talked about, certain visual patterns; at different times, costumes and props of a given era were used.
During the workshops, we went through an iconographic review – there was a contemporary painting, by an American artist, if I’m not mistaken, showing a girl in sneakers. It is absolutely possible to show modernity. If we were to use contemporary staffage, the scene could be placed both in a Renaissance interior and in a modern house. It is a matter of the author’s decision and choice.
I was more interested in creating some abstraction, so as not to clutter the image with anything more than what is minimally necessary.
And the figure of the angel? It is also very simple in its form.
Yes, and no one knows who that is. We haven’t seen him, we don’t know what he looks like, we only have a message, but no description. So we can use a certain trick here: we can present him as an unknown. No face, from the back, a quarter of the figure – just like in my painting. All we know about him is that he is a person who conveys something; nothing more. This is consistent with the reduction path I used.
I was not tempted to expand on the figure, but I do understand that we can play with how angels were visualized in the history of art. That dictionary is huge.
Much is said about sacred paintings drawing the viewer into a certain dimension of prayer and contemplation. Did you use that religious “context” when creating the painting?
Without a doubt, the most important thing was creating the image itself. And the path I chose, the path of reduction, seemed to me beneficial for contemplative reasons. I avoid putting anything distracting into the image, I minimize the entire imagery, I don’t expect the viewer to wander about the view. But please remember that even in the baroque richness and saturation they managed to achieve a contemplative impact and that it is possible.
Still, I had the feeling that I was leaving a space that would not be distracting.
Painting is an art that has a special power to induce contemplation. It does not have to be only religious. I would like to refer to your series of “Images from Childhood” – those images are also a form of contemplation of the past. One could therefore ask: what is that “act of contemplation”?
If an image stops us and draws our attention, it can draw us “into itself.” The image stays motionless, and at the same time it evokes a certain activity of perceptions, feelings, sensations, thoughts and associations. And those stay… I hope they do…
There were also voices, beside accusations of omitting the experiences of contemporary art, claiming that it is not good when an artist shows himself and his style too much in sacred painting. You said you did not intend to stay back “in the entrance hall”. I would thus like to ask you to comment on such opinions. Especially since it was said that a sacred painting must be a spiritual work, and the creator should spiritually prepare for that fact, subordinate himself, and somehow disappear behind the image. The fact that such “disappearance” is absent from your painting is an advantage, because we want to see Jarosław Modzelewski’s “The Annunciation”, and not “The Annunciation” in general.
That is a misunderstanding. There are no such images… unless we look at an icon that is schematized, i.e. made according to specific rules, and there is no room for discussion, that’s how it should be and that’s it. But you can also recognize a specific painter in an icon, they are different. Even this reduced, removed personality emerges from there. There is no other option, because it is a living person that paints.
I think it’s obvious that behind every painting from the past you see an artist. You see a work by Fra Angelico or anyone else and you immediately know that it is this painter and not another. And I guess the whole fun – so to speak – is that if we took ten painters and each of them bent over backwards and tried everything possible, they would still paint in their own way. And this is obvious, just as if several poets wrote a poem on one topic, each author – regardless of whether the subject of the work were a cucumber, a forest, or anything else – would write a completely different poem. That is how it all works.
And the issue of painting as a spiritual experience?
That is very interesting. As I said in the beginning, a painting always contains some mystery, and therefore painting is always a spiritual experience, bringing out something that is not there. It is the materialization of something that is inside, in intuition. And thus every time it is a spiritual experience. Nothing else happens. And if we face a topic such as the Annunciation, it is a unique, specific experience. In addition, you have the external load – topic, context… and so on. Which is kind of overwhelming.
But is the degree of spirituality increasing at this point? No, I wouldn’t say that.
So should artists be required to become monks when creating?
No, God forbid. That’s not how it works. If we were to try to imagine the mystique of some representation, it can be expressed in landscape, in still life, everywhere and in everything. There is no simple mechanism here that when the image concerns a “holy” subject – to simplify the matter – there must immediately be thunder and God knows what else raining down on us… It happens simply, it happens in a completely common way.
So, the Annunciation in your painting is a scene where two simple – in the best sense of the word – people meet…
Two beings.
The next question concerns the colours of the painting. How was the colour composition created?
Here we have some traditional tropes. There is a story that Mary span two threads for the temple, purple and scarlet. I have a penchant for red and I really liked those two strong colours. So I knew I would use that. And secondly, the robe… the green. First, I tried to locate the event: a hut, i.e. clay, earth. So I reached for earthy colours, i.e. pigments such as sienna, ochre, umber, a whole palette of colours that are closest to clay. Of course, I didn’t go as far as to paint a reed wall, although such thoughts were running through my head. I used burnt umber.
I also knew that a window would be shown. I had to give up the arch because it brings to mind a Renaissance building, and that would have been too far. Besides, I don’t think that ordinary cottages had windows with arches. So it had to be something simple. And what’s outside the window? Space. And blue suits this umber best. Even though you can always look for different colour solutions, certain formal decisions are necessary to decide which colour to choose. And the rest come in consequence…
The smaller version has more going on, it is more relaxed. A slightly different colour range was used, a different wall. These are just technical solutions.
This smaller version is, in a sense, a preparation. For example, the messenger there is holding a lily, but in the larger version it is gone because I thought it would be too much. Also in the smaller one, there is a needle and thread in Mary’s lap.
The lily originally had six flowers, but one I did not like, so I painted it over. And that also has its own reading, because the five flowers have a certain sense.
I talked about the painting “Sudden News”, and I also painted “Lily”. While creating “The Annunciation” I realized that it had been some kind of anticipation of the topic. I remembered my “Lily” then, although previously it had no connection with “The Annunciation”.
And suddenly I realised that echoes of the past appeared…
So you were ready to paint “The Annunciation”?
As you can see, in a sense it was there somewhere in me, it just needed some stimulus. Although painting always revolves around the sacred, around the mystery, it never occurred to me that I would put a canvas on an easel and paint a religious picture. The impulse had to come from outside.
Do you think that any new religious iconography will be created?
I hope so, because it is still a powerful topic that people struggle with. Art leaving that sphere constantly takes its revenge on both art and that sphere. Those worlds, which are the same at their origins, have diverged. Some secularization occurred, although artists have never really moved away from the sacred. Many artists have already created some impressions. And even though the separation of the two worlds is so strong that we may be finding ourselves in a black hole, we must remember that even from disagreement and separation something new can also arise.
Even criticism can be a new beginning. So let us ask what it might look like, how to create such art, if not with one set of tools, then with another. But I have the impression that something is already happening. Mystery is the greatest opportunity, it is the core of art.
