Malarstwo monumentalne II Rzeczypospolitej

The subject of the article is monumental painting, understood as the carrying out of mural paintings with a large format intended as permanent decoration for major public buildings. In inter-war Poland, compared to the Third Reich, fascist Italy, the USSR, France and the USA, a flourishing of monumental painting was most eagerly desired by the artists themselves, but only in the smallest degree by the state authorities, which preferred other, considerably less expensive art form for state propaganda, such as that of a literary content. The final year of the Second Republic’s existence also brought in its wake attempts on the part of state institutions to take advantage of the potential of visual expression to convey state ideology by means of monumental painting, and thus the creation of suitable conditions for the development of this form of expression and representations. The fate of these state-oriented ambitions was sealed by the outbreak of the WWII.