Sztuka Legionów Polskich

The concept of legionary art is usually linked to the work of artists serving in Józef Piłsudski’s Legions and of all those who supported their ideas. Although the events of the First World War were reflected widely in the art of very disparate artistic circles in both Europe and America, legionary art remains unique because of its distinct character. Polish artists depicted the war without showing its cruelty and horror. It is not a special kind of Polish pacifism that led them to paint serene or at least neutral scenes from the soldier’s life, such as sunlit forest clearings cut across by trenches or poignant crosses under lonely country trees; on the contrary, as the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka recognized, it was a desire to fight in the name of a vision of peace and a better life. In this visionary world, there was no place for doubting the purpose of war, as in paintings that showed the cruelty of combat and the terror of death. The rhetoric of legionary art was absolutely clear, although the style of the works themselves varied. Older artists, familiar with the ongoing war thanks to the stories of younger colleagues and from press reports, painted pictures in the style of nineteenth-century battle scenes. The works of painters fighting on the front were different, and although in theory they did not show the horror of war, they are distinguished by an ineffaceable quality, recognizable even today, the result of their longing for freedom, a desire to emphasize one’s own identity, the hope for change and the trauma of war. One of the most important factors defining the nature of legionary art was the emphasis of its own identity, for example by placing uniformed elements in paintings, including portraits. On a day to day basis, their identity was for the Legionnaires an end in itself. The fact that the Polish army had been reborn after a hundred years of non-existence was the most important thing for its participants. They were happy to be portrayed in a way that commemorated this situation. Women were also part of Piłsudski’s Legions, but this was not reflected in the art, probably because of ambivalent opinions about the part they played in combat. The nature of legionary art means that in the last hundred years it has become largely anachronistic, now almost exclusively labelled as illustration. However, an open question still remains about the role it played in giving us information about the Legions.