A State of Latent Life: The Paintings of Olga Boznańska

Olga Boznańska’s painting is the epitome of a new approach to the physical matter of painting, refl ecting the late nineteenth-century myth of the organic communion of work and life. The artist herself declared her art as honest and true, devoid of any affectation; she left many paintings and photographs depicting herself as a professional in the process of working, in the studio. Although Boznańska spent most of her life in Paris and was inspired by the Impressionists and les Nabis, her formation took place in Munich. Her years of education and fi rst steps in artistic practice in the capital of Bavaria were decisive not only in the matter of the workshop or skills of the talented painter, but also in the matter of her aesthetic attitude. Boznańska’s close relationship with the visual culture of Munich and the essential role of this artistic centre in her career were usually underestimated and dominated by Paris. Boznańska admired the oeuvre of the great German colourist Wilhelm Leibl, and at the exhibitions she could follow many other contemporary German realists and impressionists. It was Leibl who proclaimed the ethos of “honest painting” (echte Malerei), considered as “the beautiful craft”. The circle of painters that was concentrated around him fulfi lled this concept of autonomic art – Reinmalerei, of painting portraits, still lifes and genre scenes. Olga Boznańska must have been infl uenced by the ideas and the painterly effects of the German artists and their American followers, such as Frank Duveneck. She shared with them the same quest for the subtle gradations of colour and explored the potentialities of paint as a material. This approach to technique was ennobled by the German theory of art (Wilhelm Trübner, Carl Schuch), which was the basis for the metaphysical concept of painting. The visual effects of Boznańska’s works are close to those of Munich art at the borderline between realism and expressionism. Her fascination with visuality led her to an original expression of spirituality.