The Brick Wall in Andrzej Wróblewski’s ”Execution against a Wall” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s ”Le Mur”: An Intertextual Relation
In 1949, Andrzej Wróblewski (1927–1957) created eight paintings entitled ”Executions”. They were an attempt to develop a new language for art, which was facing a crisis of representation after the horrors of the war. This article takes on the task of an analysis and interpretation of Wróblewski’s ”E...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
2019-01-01
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| Series: | Miejsce |
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| Online Access: | https://miejsce.asp.waw.pl/en/ceglany-mur-w-rozstrzelaniu-na-scianie-andrzeja-wroblewskiego-i-le-mur-jeana-paula-sartrea-relacja-intertekstualna/ |
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| Summary: | In 1949, Andrzej Wróblewski (1927–1957) created eight paintings entitled ”Executions”. They were an attempt to develop a new language for art, which was facing a crisis of representation after the horrors of the war. This article takes on the task of an analysis and interpretation of Wróblewski’s ”Execution against a Wall”, a painting that has largely been overlooked and disregarded as conventional.
In ”Execution against a Wall”, the wall limits the field of vision while forcing the viewer to engage in the performance, creating an arena or stage. I discuss the many visual sources that also depict executions set against the background of a wall. Iconic depictions by Goya, Manet, and Picasso were fundamental for works from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. I also discuss how brick walls take on various functions in different depictions, constructing the composition and the semantic field of the painting whilst underlining the specificity of the painting as a medium and the two-dimensionality of the canvas.
My intertextual interpretation of ”Execution against a Wall” is based on parallels between Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story ”Le Mur” and Wróblewski’s painting. In the case of Wróblewski’s work we are confronted with a representation of two people who, in the face of looming death, start to resemble each other. Any individual qualities disappear and differences are abolished, yet death does not unite them.
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| ISSN: | 2956-4158 |