#paintings from poland

[amelia-augustyn]

The painting is executed on a canvas board (cotton canvas glued to cardboard). Size: 29,5/24 cm (12/9.4 in)

[marietheran]

Add what country you're from in the tags.

[empirearchives]

Portrait of Maria Mirska, Barbara Szumska and Adam Napoleon Mirski

Jan Rustem (Armenian, 1762-1835), c. 1808, Napoleonic era

[canichangemyblogname]

Fuck. We are in desperate need of genocide studies in the US. Because people are genuinely arguing that Nazism— and thus the white supremacy which inspired it— is an aberration of European philosophical tradition, rather than the end conclusion of “Western” ideologies.

“Nazism is uniquely evil” implies it cannot happen here and that it originally happened by freak happenstance. If you singularize the actions of the Nazis, you lose critical analysis of what ideas inspired them (see: US genocide of First Nations People) and how the Germans developed their tactics of oppression and murder (see: German genocide of the Herero and the Nama people between 1904-1908).

I believe it’s time we call this kind of rhetoric what it is: genocide denialism and Holocaust revisionism. It denies the European-created genocides before and after the Holocaust, and it rewrites the history leading up to the Holocaust to purposefully cover up the fact that it can and will happen here. Over and over and over. Such rhetoric also (purposefully) denies victims of genocides the world over solidarity with each other. To justify the destruction of Poland, Hitler asked, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Would you deny the son of a Shoah survivor the right to march with Armenians? Or would you, like the German state, accuse him of de-singularizing and relativizing the Holocaust and report him to the local antisemitism commissioner?

If you treat Nazism as unlike anything else that’s ever happened or will happen, then you don’t need to worry about it and the tragedies it created happening ever again. “Never again” becomes an empty promise. This type of rhetoric gives people the opportunity to wipe their hands of any culpability in the rise and reproduction of similar systems or other genocides, and they can use this singularity rhetoric to position themselves into a moral category despite supporting similar ideas. That Nazism and the Shoah happened means it was possible and still is possible, among any people.

The “massive, systematic, and efficient nature of” Nazi oppression, brutality, atrocity and its genocidal tactics and policies is a function of modernity and “Western” Enlightenment rationality. It is not an aberration.

[williamkisser]

Reflecting by the nature! by polish artist Celina Dominikowska (1853)

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Inspired by polish folk art

Definitely worked on different brush control techniques with this

[ambulancie]

Every eurovision:

[localbabygirl]

Death of Ellenai by Jacek Malcewski (1845-1929)

[alexanderpearce]

z rusały wymoczku będziesz tańczyć // a playlist for rusałki

zaczątek // volkman rusalka, rusalka / wild rushes // the decemberists dni błogie // dola rusalki // lumin lubelska kolęda // volkman chodź // księżyc wiszące skały // ifi ude, bart pałyga, marcin lamch ballada o głupim wiesławie // żywiołak kiedy deszcz zaczął padać na zawsze? // wędrowcy~tułacze~zbiegi obrona włości biełgorajskiej przed janem zamoyskim // królówczana smuga ile me lat? // księżyc

[slavicprincess1966]

so far went about 1600km about the country and here are some pics of me & the city i am exploring now; beautiful gdańsk <3

[spilladabalia]

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929-2005)

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[mybeingthere]

Hand painted second-hand leather gloves - inspired by old Slavic embroidery and traditional Balkan tattoos.

By Julia G. // Zmijowka

An illustrator / graphic designer / collage artist from Poland.

[netflix]

Spotlight: Adam Stockhausen

Production Designer, The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar

Oscar winning production designer Adam Stockhausen (not pictured above, that’s Benedict Cumberbatch), whose work you may know from Wes Anderson films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Asteroid City, The French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, and Moonrise Kingdom, as well as titles like Bridge of Spies, and West Side Story (2021), took the time to answer some questions.

Which details from or aspects of The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar did you focus the most on while adapting it to the screen? How did you meld Roald Dahl and Wes’s worlds?

The details on this one started with Dahl’s writing hut! We matched the details pretty carefully and exactly. As soon as we step outside of the hut though we start to move through the world of the story and the world of the stage at the same time. Wes had the idea of how he wanted to do this from the very beginning. My main challenge was trying to figure out how to pull it off—making the parts move and getting each to have the right detail.

What’s a small change you made on a project that ended up having an unexpectedly significant impact? 

Lots of times this happens—where what seems like a small thing at the time becomes a very significant turning point. I’m in Berlin now writing this and remembering being here scouting for East Berlin for Bridge of Spies. We were struggling to find a section of town that still felt old enough to show the early 60s, and decided to take a chance on a quick search in Poland. That quick search changed the whole production plan and ultimately gave us the look of our East Berlin.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work? 

Technology has definitely changed the way we plan the work. We used to model everything in cardboard or sometimes just plan in two dimensions with pencil and paper. We can now plan in 3-dimensional space using modeling programs and see what real lenses will do.  This allows for more accurate planning and makes scenery moves like the casino set in Henry Sugar possible.

Do you have any signature easter eggs you like to leave? Any small details that you are particularly fond of? 

I wouldn’t say there are easter eggs in this one. But there are loads of special details! I think my favorite might be the levitation boxes where we painted a perspective view of the background onto a prop box. The actor sitting on the box appears to be floating in a very special and theatrical way.

Did you talk about reflecting the iconic Quentin Blake illustrations in production design? How would you go about doing that? 

Not really. They are such incredible drawings and I’d say they’ve been inspiring me since I saw them as a child! But for this the starting point was really the machine Wes devised to move us through the story—and pairing that to specific references scene by scene.

There is such an intentionality to the aesthetics of a Wes world. Is there a set or frame that took you a long time to get perfectly right? 

All of them! It’s a very labor-intensive process getting these frames right. Occasionally one will click right away, but usually it’s a process of refining and refining. The jungle for instance went from sketches to models to samples and back again several times before the final look settled.

If you had to present one frame that showcases the best of your work, what would it be? 

Oh my. Maybe the jungle? I really enjoyed making the jungle!

With all the moving sets in the trailer for The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar, it feels reminiscent of a theatre production. Are there distinct differences in approach between film and theatre and how much do you blur the lines between them in your work? 

I think the lines are blurred completely! Or maybe they aren’t even there. I love that Henry Sugar is so incredibly theatrical in its storytelling.  It allows us to show the artifice of the sets all the time which somehow makes them even more satisfying when they finally do line up and create a complete picture. I think the casino set is a perfect example—the pauses where it all lines up for a second are even more enjoyable because we get to see it broken apart and sliding away.

Thanks, Adam!

[joeyalohadream]

ohhh winter or storm would be So cute

Prompt: [Winter] our muses cuddle while watching a snow storm.

Here's a little post-war, established relationship snowstorm snuggle for our boys.

Static crackles out of the Jewel Wakemaster radio sat atop the mantle no matter how delicately John turns the dial between his fingers. He can practically feel the tickle of the fluctuating voltages against the side of his hand where it presses against the waffle patterned speaker as he tries to find a signal. There’s a big band jazz show that’s supposed to be broadcast tonight and he’s been looking forward to coaxing Gale away from his book and into his arms to dance around their living room to it all day.

But all he can find is static in place of the usual steady stream of music the reliable device has supplied him since Gale gifted him the small radio on his birthday a few months ago. He groans in frustration as he watches the needle land in the right place once again, only for the fuzzy noise to increase.

“No luck tonight?”

John looks up as Gale appears in the doorway, wiping his dishpan hands dry on a kitchen towel.

“Must be the weather,” John guesses, turning his focus back to the radio dial, not willing to give up just yet. He’s had visions of Gale swaying in his arms all day and he’s not about to call it quits on making that dream a reality.

“Mhm.”

Gale’s low rumble of agreement draws his focus and he looks up again to find that he has made his way into the room and stands now in front of their bay window, staring out over their yard. The sun is starting to dip low, but there’s enough light for John to make out the heavy snow that’s turning the world white. It blankets the ground already even though it started falling only as Gale pulled the chicken out of the oven an hour ago.

He turns back to the radio as a trumpet, backed by a drum beat filters through the static for a moment, but it’s gone again even though his fingers hold the dial steady.

“Fuckin’ static,” he curses, frowning at the failing contraption.

He works in vain for a few more minutes, going so far as to flip the power off and on a few times to no avail.

“Guess we won’t be gettin’ that show after all,” he finally admits to himself and to Gale as he lets the dial rest in the right position one last time. He straightens his back and steps away, letting the static fizzle out and into the room. It syncs up with the crackling from the fireplace and creates a surprisingly pleasant background noise. As he steps away, he feels the loss of warmth that had been painting his shins and thighs while he worked.

Turning to face the window, he feels his mouth pull down as he takes in Gale’s stiff posture where he still stands looking out at the storm brewing.

“Buck?”

Silence greets him as he closes the distance between them, coming to stop at Gale’s side. The other man doesn’t seem to register his arrival and John feels the ever-present sensation of worry wrapping around his heart and starting to squeeze as he takes him in.

“Gale,” he says, voice almost as low as the static humming out of the radio across the room. He moves slowly, raises a hand until his palm is hovering over the back of Gale’s neck. Making contact, he feels a small flinch and hears a sharp intake of breath as the man next to him seems to come back to himself.

Blue eyes find his own as John squeezes his neck.

“You with me?”

“Yeah.” John feels the column of Gale’s throat work beneath his thumb as he swallows thickly. “I’m with you.”

“Where’d you go?”

Gale ducks his head and then crosses his arms over his chest, rocks a bit on his heels and then meets John’s gaze again with a sad smile pulling at his lips.

“Poland,” he says, one shoulder lifting and falling again.

John feels a shiver go through the smaller man and he feels his heart reach out for him. He looks briefly to the snow outside the window, hears the static of the radio and remembers twenty men standing around, waiting for a radio broadcast to cast a glimmer of hope into a hopeless situation while a storm raged outside. Wonders why it didn’t transport him back to that awful place as well.

“C’mere, you,” he says at the same time he increases the pressure of the hand still laying against the back of Gale’s neck. He guides him closer and smiles when he’s met with no resistance. Gale melts himself against John’s chest, face tucked in against his throat, and winds both arms around his waist. John lets his hand slide up and bury itself in soft, golden strands, way past regulation length now. His other arm winds around Gale’s back and pulls him in as close as he can get him. “Be here with me, sweetheart. Right here, in our living room. We’re home.”

Even as he says the words, they feel inadequate. They feel like a half-truth. Because his ‘home’ is the man in his arms. His home has always been Gale, so he’d been home in Texas and in Florida and in England and in Poland. He’d had his home in the hot desert heat after they lost Curt and a hundred other men. He’d had his home when he’d stumbled through the gates of a Stalag with one foot in the grave. He’d had his home when his heart and his mind warred with each other and he’d had to fight every day not to stick the other foot six feet under.

He still feels a blossoming guilt when he thinks of how close he’d come to abandoning his home. It constricts his lungs and fogs his thoughts and makes him want to run away. But the knowledge that he’s Gale’s home, the unbelievable, yet undeniable truth that this man in his arms can’t do this without him brings him back with a clarity that’s purer than flying on a cloudless day through endless blue skies.

He feels Gale nod against his neck and he ducks his head until he’s nosing at the hair falling over Gale’s temple. Strong arms squeeze him tight and then loosen their grip enough for Gale to arch his back and meet his gaze.

“I’m okay,” Gale tells him with his trademark little smile. A barely there twitch of his lips. “Just got lost in the moment.”

John feels his cheeks stretch as soft lips press to one and he can’t help but nudge his face, noses brushing until he can finally kiss Gale’s smile. A soft sigh, content and warm, escapes from between Gale lips and ghosts against his own and John smiles into the kiss, hand tightening in the long hair beneath his palm.

They sway. No big band, no drums or pounding jazz. They sway to the static, to the fizzle, crackle, pop of the fire that warms their living room. John can feel a matching warmth in his chest as Gale lazily moves his soft lips to the hinge of his jaw and down his throat before letting his cheek rest against John’s collarbone.

“Nothing like Poland,” Gale’s low voice mumbles into his neck.

John tightens his arms and moves his feet, dancing them closer to the sofa that rests along the wall.

“Never again,” John tells him. He’ll never let him be cold like that again. Hungry like that again. Dirty or worried or scared like that again.

He feels the soft brush of a cushion against the back of his leg as he plants his feet. He lets his hand run down Gale’s arm until he can grasp his hand and then he pushes him away until his arms extended straight out. A laugh barks out of him at the unamused look Gale sends his way right before he makes him twirl, but he’s fighting a smile when he spins back around to face him and John can’t help but pull him back in to press his own grin to Gale’s growing one.

“Thanks for the dance, baby,” John murmurs against his lips, nose pressed flush below the apple of his cheek. Blue eyes, shining with happiness, meet his as they pull away and John finds it easier than anything to push away the lingering thoughts of another snowy evening with a radio that won't work.

He drops himself down onto the couch, presses his back to the armrest and uses the hand still grasping Gale’s fingers to pull him down with him. He plants one foot on the ground, the other against the cushion and opens his legs to create a space that Gale fits into like it was made for him. A moment later, with Gale’s back pressed to his chest, legs sprawled out and his head falling back to rest on John’s shoulder, he can’t help but be sure that it was made for Gale. That he was made for Gale, and Gale for him. He lets his arms wrap around his slender frame, something settling in him when he feels the toned definition of the muscle Gale’s been able to build in the last few months under his palms.

A comfortable silence settles between for a while as they sit and watch the snow fall. The room is warm and Gale is steady weight against him, growing heavier the more he relaxes. John’s eyes hood as he finds himself almost blissfully content in this moment.

“I never liked the snow,” Gale shares, breaking John from the sleepy stupor he’d fallen into.

“No?” He turns his head and nuzzles against the hair that’s tickling his chin. “Even before?”

Gale hums quietly, understanding what before John is referring to without any need to elaborate. Their lives have become a steady stream of before moments.

Before they met.

Before they become officers.

Before John shipped out.

Before they kissed.

Before the fucked.

Before they made love.

Before Gale went down and John followed him.

Before the Stalag.

Before Gale went over that wall and John couldn’t follow him.

Before John hung that flag.

It’s the after that they’re both trying to focus on experiencing now. And the good days are racking up and starting to outweigh the bad ones.

“We didn’t have a fireplace,” Gale continues and John feels the last cloud of the sleepy haze that had been swirling behind his eyes drift away at the realization that Gale is sharing something from the before that John wasn’t a part of. That John doesn’t know as much about as he’d like to. “Had this old, rusty wood burning stove to heat the house. Only we never really had any wood for it.”

John stays quiet, focuses on the vibration of Gale’s low timbe he can feel rumbling against his chest as he speaks.

“When it’d snow like this, swear it was colder than the bunkhouse.” He pushes back further against John’s chest and John tightens his arms around him. “My old man never bothered cutting wood. It was always the last thing on his mind, after me I guess.”

There’s a painful pull behind his ribs at the soft-spoken words, at the reminder that Gale hadn’t been taken care of, hadn’t been safe, even before he’d signed up to die for his country. He lets one of hands drift up and rest atop Gale’s head, lets his fingers scratch and soothe over his scalp.

“I’d put on every shirt I owned and I’d go out, try to cut some. But I was too weak to lift the axe. Always on the scrawny side if you can believe it,” he chuckles and John smiles into his hair.

“You? A skinny little thing?” John puts his best incredulous voice to use and pinches Gale’s side. “I can’t even imagine.”

Gale flinches away from the jab with a huff and turns his body to the side, shoulder now pressed into John’s chest. He knocks his forehead against jaw with a low, “quiet, you,” and John pulls his head back down under his chin, chuckling at him.

“I used to walk to the park at the end of our road and pick up sticks,” he continues once he’s settled back in and comfortable. There’s a wistful tone to his voice, but it’s not a happy story. “They were too wet, too small to really give off any heat. Hardly could get ‘em to light half the time. But it felt good to try.”

And John’s thoughts spring back to two days ago, when he’d heard the weather report on base about the cold front coming in. About the snow storm. He’d come home that night and spent an hour cutting wood while Gale made dinner. He knew Gale would be home alone during most of the bad weather while John was at work and he’d wanted Gale to be able to keep the fire going without venturing out into the cold. He’d needed too. Gale doesn’t handle the cold as well he does, worse really, than anyone he’s ever met.

Gale had popped out onto the porch that night with a cup of coffee for him and a smile on his face that had remained in place all through dinner and into the evening.

He’d taken John apart slowly that night, with his hands, his fingers, his tongue. He’d made love to him in their bed and he’d held him close after. Cleaned him up and tucked him in and kissed him so sweetly that John had felt his eyes sting from the force of the affection he’d felt.

At the time, he’d thought Gale had been worked up watching him chop wood. Watching him use his wide shoulders and his rough hands to work up a sweat. That it had led to a mind-blowing evening of pleasure.

But now he thinks maybe the light in Gale’s eyes had been gratitude. Had been happiness and wonder that someone was finally taking care of him in a way no one else ever had. He thinks maybe he’d been taken care of in return that night.

You remind me of my dad, John.

Well, eat your heart out Cleven Sr., he thinks viciously. He’s John’s now and John makes him warm. Makes him safe. Makes him feel loved.

“You gonna call me a sap if I tell you that I’ll never let you be cold again?”

“Mhm,” Gale confirms, “But I’d believe you.”

The faith Gale has in him, the unshakeable trust he’s always had when it comes to John never fails to make his chest fill with pride.

“It’s true,” he says. “From here on out, snow’s just going to be something pretty for us to look at. Something for us to throw at each other before we warm up by the fire.”

“You wanna have a snowball fight, John?”

He can hear the smile in Gale’s voice and a matching one stretches his own face.

“Sure, sweetheart,” he presses his lips to the top of Gale’s head and breathes the words into his hair. “Get you all rosy cheeked and breathless and then take you inside, lay you out in front of the fire and have my way with you. Warm you back up from the inside out.” He traces his fingers, touch light, over Gale’s side, his hip, down his thigh as he speaks.

Gale squirms against him and tilts his back enough to look up at him. Shows off the impressive flush John’s words brought to his cheeks.

“You like the sound of that, baby?”

Soft lips press against his, the kiss languid, slow and enough to light a fire low in John’s belly. Gale’s tongue traces the seem of his lips and he opens for him, shivers at the wet glide across his own tongue.

A hand slides into his hair, strong fingers pulling at the curls at the back of his head and he moans at the feeling as Gale turns over completely to press against him in a long line.

“Let’s make a new memory,” Gale breathes out against John’s lips. “Make me fall in love with the snow, John.”

John’s hands slide down until they’re wrapped around Gale’s slim waist and he pulls him forward, breath hitching as their hips align. A quiet moan leaves the younger man and his eyes fall shut as John grinds up against him.

“Okay, baby. I gotcha.”  

[spontaneousmilktea]

𓆩♡𓆪 bunny's 60-day glow up challenge 𓆩♡𓆪

hi again, i was searching for a challenge to motivate me till the end of the year and i think i found the perfect one by @dreambunnynotes. please go on her account if you are interested in the rules&template. thank you! ✧˖*°࿐

my chosen habits:

learn polish

study

selfcare

my goals and why’s:

habit one: i need to learn polish at minimum level B1 because i want to move in poland next year and there are not many universities that teach in english and are interesting. i also want to become a polyglot so this is perfect.

habit two: i have to study (besides polish) for my school and my exams because i kinda want that academic validation... i also want to have high scores so it will be easier to get in unis.

habit three: lately i've been neglecting myself and my well being and of course if i dont feel pretty and clean i will feel miserable for the day and wont be able to be focus on my tasks. i want to look pretty for myself. i want to achieve my best self.

my habit energy tiers:

habit one: polish

low energy: achieve all tasks on duolingo

medium energy: finish a section on duolingo; study vocab

high energy: study grammar rules; watch a tv show; read a children's book

habit two: study

low energy: read 10 pages from a book/ lecture; review lessons

medium energy: do hw; finish projects/drawings/paintings; study 2 hours

high energy: study 5 hours

habit three: selfcare

low energy: pilates for 10-15 min + basic shower routine

medium energy: pilates for 15-20 min + basic shower routine + morning and night routine

high energy: pilates for +20 min + everything shower routine + morning and night routine

(edit: i'll change my habits energy tiers so it alligns with my daily schedule) (edit 2: as a reward ill buy for myself some gym clothes)