Przestrzeń emblematyczna

In this paper, the author traces the connections between the art of the theater and the art of the emblem. Revisiting the work of Albrecht Schöne and referring to the present theories of the emblem, the author claims that both art forms employ performance, which inseparably connects them. Emblematic structures can be found both in the beginnings of a theatrical performance (the play or the script) and in its remains (the documentation of the performance). The emblem is therefore the ultimate medium of the theater’s influence and transmission at the longest social distance, when any direct link of the audience with the original performance has already vanished. We can observe that theater more oriented towards social impact tends to utilize emblematics all the more willingly. Finally, the author introduces the notion of the “emblematic space”: an abstract categorial space, which is constituted and transformed through performance, containing it as its “stage.” Theater’s task is creating such spaces; in everyday social life, they arise spontaneously as emanations of the collective hopes or expectations; they are also set up by individual efforts.