August 16, 2015

"This painting by Wojciech Fangor is one of the most canonical works of Polish socialist realism."

"In the canvas, there are two women."

The one of the left hand side is the antagonist: slim, in a fitted, fashionable dress, patterned with English writing (Miami, New York, Wall Street, London, Coca-cola). Her manicured hands, which surely haven’t been calloused by hard labour, hold an elegant green bag....

[The woman on the right] is proud, relaxed, resting one of her hands on her hip, and the other – on a shovel’s handle. She is strong, self-assured, and natural. Under the rolled up sleeves of her jumpsuit we see well-built forearms....

In the background, we see a symbolic representation of the effects of these two positions. On the left hand side, there are ruins.... while on the right, behind the workers, we see a freshly constructed, multi-storey building with rows of windows divided by simple architectonic elements, in a typical socialist realist style. Even the weather in the painting is meaningful. The clear blue sky on the right side of the composition seems to be threatened by the clouds approaching from above the ruins....
What I love about this picture is that for all the heavy nudging to feel revulsion toward the woman in white, she's really rather fabulous. Love the sunglasses. Love the writing on the dress. And I really love the way painted propaganda backfires. The fact that the man is looking askance at her while he maintains a possessive grip on the shoulder of jumpsuit lady transforms the woman we were supposed to hate into a feminist icon. It's no longer obvious that she's not working. She could be working in the tech industry. She's getting on with her pursuits, not wasting energy disapproving of other people. Yes, she's keeping a grip on her handbag, but I would too. Those surly disapprovers look ready to expropriate it.

90 comments:

Gahrie said...

The lady in white is the "other people" from which their money comes from.

RigelDog said...

Did you notice her hands---the artist has suggested something like wriggling worms. She is as pale as death; you cannot see her eyes. I get the sense of an insect in how she is portrayed, and of death.

chuck said...

She is strong, self-assured, and natural.

She needs bigger tits to go with her hips.

Greek Donkey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

When rebuilding Eastern Europe after WWII you needed top construction worker women to cart off debris like oxen.

The effete Brunette probably worked with her mind in a sophisticated society not around anymore because it was destroyed by Armies and Air forces.

Which is why Marxist wanting to keep power need to destroy the societies the take over starting with carbon based energy systems and agriculture. Then the oxen are worked to death. That is what Bernie Sanders plans for us, ladies.

Greek Donkey said...

If the artist is making a statement, I would want full transparency - Which model did he sleep with?

Bill said...

Have some East German consumer porn from the 1960s.

YoungHegelian said...

What I find scary is that I knew a Polish American chick, who, when she was the age of the shovel-lady, looked exactly like her, including the build.

Big Mike said...

The guy looks like he's wondering what it would take to get the woman on the left into bed with him.

Freeman Hunt said...

Being a good painter must not have been a big socialist priority.

"It's a bit crude. Perhaps if the artist had spent more time..."
"And miss another moment of plowing the fields with his comrades? Never!"
"Oh, right. Yes, I see. Do you have anything painted by a capitalist pig?"
"You don't want one of those paintings! Products of an evil ideology."
"Of course, you're right. It's just that I'd like to be... humble."
"Humble?"
"Yes, you know, equal with everyone. I wouldn't want to put on airs with a magnificent painting like this. I'd like to look at one of the lower, not-so-special capitalist paintings."
"Here is one."
"Oh, it's beautiful!"
"Eh?"
"I mean, humble. It's very humble. I'll take it."

Greek Donkey said...

What's interesting to me is that neither is really looking at the woman in white. It's as if it were a poster for or about something else and then the woman in white was added. The artist might want you to think they are looking at her, but really the painting is about the changing times. I don't think it is condemning the woman in white necessarily, just showing that whatever was is no longer. What is the country about in this new age? What should be its goals? Who should be their poster "people". At least, I hope this is what the artist was saying because I think it's more interesting.

Birdwatcher said...

Spot on, Althouse.

Birkel said...

Lech Walesa never wrote poetry or painted, that I know of. And he won the fight against communism (or collectivist, if you prefer) during his lifetime. I have no reason to believe communists won't try again.

Unknown said...

Woman on the right has her hand on the handle of her shovel. Definite sexual symbolism there. She's got the socialist man by his you-know-what, but he really wants the woman in white.

Biff said...

Althouse's interpretation may well have been the artist's interpretation, as well. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I recall that it was not uncommon for artists and composers to plant subversive, counterrevolutionary, anti-communist messages in their work.

JRoberts said...

I thought this was a Bernie Sanders campaign poster.

Bruce Hayden said...

The thing to me is the 1st/2nd generation Polish women I have known tended to look more time the one to the left in the white dress. Some of the most style conscious/stylish women I have known. For example, I know one, raised behind the iron curtain, who has hundreds of pairs of shoes. That sort of thing. I have heard both the theory that a lot of Polish are this way, and that a lot of those raised under Communism are, once they can. Which, I think here means that they were supposed to prefer the woman on the right, but actually wanted to be like the one on the left, with her access to western goods, etc.

Leslie Graves said...

The woman in white IS fabulous! She exudes fabulosity and the artist has to have recognized that on some level.

Freeman Hunt said...

Maybe he hated socialism. You're not going to appeal to men or women by making the enemy the more attractive one.

Michael K said...

"Being a good painter must not have been a big socialist priority."

You should see what is selling for $30,000 and up in art galleries in west Los Angeles. I was in one yesterday.

That would fit right in.

MD Greene said...

Love the subtlety of socialist art.

cf said...

Fascinating, Ann, thank you.

We can smile and dissect this art at arms length, but what of our own hypnotic propaganda?

i am very sad that the author of Obama's HOPE poster had such an infectious effect on our culture. Shepherd Fairey has had quite the impact. He is the maker of the OBEY posters as well, supposedly a creepy "joke", but, oh, how pervasive, and what an appropriate message to spew everywhere for the leftists of our age to smirk about.

Here is a favorite one of Fairey's images for making me sad. Supposedly, the poster is championing the little bayonets below, but you cannot tell me the artist is not in adoration of the power of that tyrant boot. Much like the worst of the anti-war folks I met back in the day that, in working with those few one could see they would be worse than any Nixon, power mad totalitarians those WeatherUnderground-types. They would gladly Be the Boot.

and indeed, here we are now, the Bill Ayres types ascendant along with their artists friends, the "serene police state" of hope and change Eternal.

sad. . .

Godspeed, America




Deirdre Mundy said...

Woman on the right looks like a stereotypical Russian peasant. I agree with the comment upthread-- All the Polish women I've known tend to go in for 'fabulous.'

Which makes sense, if you're staring at a map of Europe. Russia is on the right, clunky and run-down. Poland is on the left, leaning towards fabulous.

Darrell said...

Marxism is a mental disease.

YoungHegelian said...

This isn't Soviet Socialist Realism, this is Polish. Big historical difference.

The Poles had Marxist-Leninism imposed on them by force by their hated eastern neighbors after their hated western neighbors had just laid waste to their country & murdered 1/5 of them. To make matters worse, the Soviets installed a triumvirate of Poles who had fought with the Red Army & not the Polish forces. Two out of three of this triumvirate were Jewish, to boot. It was not a "popular" turn of political events in any case.

That the painting contains elements which "deconstruct" the obvious message of the propaganda is par for the course of the post-war Polish regime. This is a "picture perfect" illustration of Leo Strauss' idea of how authors write under a regime of persecution. Everything that Prof Althouse sees is meant to be there, and probably more, if only we knew the period better.

Bob R said...

I love it. The honeycomb worker hive in the background is great.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The first thing I noticed about the painting is that the workers had less than the Western woman. They have shovels. She has fashion accessories. She is cleaner than they are, to boot. She is the focus of their attention. She doesn't even seem to know that they are there.

David said...

Freeman Hunt said...
Maybe he hated socialism. You're not going to appeal to men or women by making the enemy the more attractive one.


He turned away from Socialist realism, indeed all kinds of realism, once the communist power waned and he could leave (eventually to the US.)

Lewis Wetzel said...

cf wrote:
"Here is a favorite one of Fairey's images for making me sad"
A remarkable image. The impression is that the boot is going to crush the rifles, not that the tyrant is going to fall. The boot is moving. The rifles are static.

ndspinelli said...

The first girl I fucked was a Polack. Unfortunately, she was closer to the Commie than the fox.

ndspinelli said...

I prefer the body sized about halfway between the 2. Sophia Loren, 1960's, is the perfect image.

Marc in Eugene said...
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Marc in Eugene said...

That handbag is green? The necklace is, certainly.

Fernandinande said...

IIRC, the main guy was a Ukrainian propaganda artist.
http://thepeoplescube.com/

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Soviet Bloc art of the time looked a lot like the Americana art of the time by the likes of John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, and Grant Wood.

Bobber Fleck said...

Caitlyn Jenner, is that you in the blue dress? You're looking very manly today. Maybe your hormone therapy mix is a bit off.

William said...

Just now I'm reading Anna Reid's account of the siege of Leningrad, called "Leningrad". Lots of people starved to death, but some groups fared better than others. Orphans, for example, starved while those who administered orphanages came out ok. The intelligentsia went hungry but they weren't the worse hit. The agricultural workers during the siege, as always, fared the worst.......Most incidents of cannibalism, or anyway the ones that came to the attention of the authorities, were women. These women claimed that they were driven to this extreme only because they needed to feed their starving children. These women were not punished harshly by the authorities so don't anyone claim that women didn't reach their full potential under the Soviet system.

furious_a said...

"The Woman in White" looks "cosmopolitan", which was Soviet shorthand for "Jewish".

Jimmy said...

Its actually a fairly typical example of propaganda, not just from Poland but thru out the Eastern Bloc.
the woman in white is Jewish. thats the whole point. Its dated 1950.

BarrySanders20 said...

He has five fingers and no thumb on his left hand.

Equality of digits? The thumb shall conform.

jr565 said...

The woman on the right looks like a dude.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Well built forearms" may have been a Polish euphemism for "lesbian." As in "Hey, Jozef, I hear that your sister has well built forearms! I hear all the other girls want her to open their pickle jars!"
Fighting words.

chuck said...

Most incidents of cannibalism, or anyway the ones that came to the attention of the authorities, were women.

Interesting. The Eskimo told Peter Freuchen'the same thing, women coming with long knives in times of starvation. It's one more thing a man should keep in mind about the love of his life.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Tsk, tsk Chuck. We don't use the word "Eskimo" anymore. You should have been more culturally sensitive, and written that the Innuit women were cannibalistic murders.

cf said...

The three hands In the bottom left are a kind of hieroglyphic.

And, yeah, Terry, remarkable Fairey poster of the Tyrant Boot. behold, these old SerenePoliceState lefties from out of the sixties are having their day. that's the Tea Party and any other Party-Poopers that are the prickly little bayonets.

The Boot is all over us.

jaydub said...

As others have noted on this thread, I believe something more pernicious is going on here. IMHO the pair on the right are intended to exhibit idealized Slavic characteristics (unpretentious, tall and strong, blonde, chiseled faces bronzed from honest work on the land) while the single figure on the left is almost certainly intended to represent a stereotypical Jew (pasty complexion, too heavily made-up, short and dark hair, thin cheeks, hidden eyes, everything but the hook nose.) In the event, the Jewish woman's dress prominently lists the stereotypical Jewish centers of power (New York, Miami, London, Wall Street,) and it would appear her clutching of the purse is intended more representative of Jewish/capitalistic greed than fear of being robbed by two such non-threatening, casually observing, but wary, socialist stalwarts.

I submit that subtle antisemitism has been and still is a defining characteristic of some European culture, including art, as well as leftist culture on both sides of the Atlantic. Jews (aka bankers, hedge fund operators, venture capitalists, private equity managers – interest-carrying, Rothschild-style usurers!) have always been a convenient symbol for the left to use to put a distinctive face on presumed capitalist greed and to give the roused rabble a concrete enemy upon which to focus. That was true during the Soviet era when this painting was made, and if you listen carefully to a rabid Bernie Sanders supporter you can still get a whiff of it today.

tim maguire said...

The glasses look added in later--giving it the feel of a parody piece. The woman, while glamorous, also reminds me of a frog, a bit monstrous, for an overall effect of a Twilight Zone character.

tim maguire said...

John Tuffnell said...He has five fingers and no thumb on his left hand.

Ick! I didn't even notice that, but now he looks grotesque too.

tim in vermont said...

I would rate the Polish women I have known on a scale of "Decent looking -> Hot" The rest of the scale would not be required. Only one of them was an escapee from Bernie Sanders' idea of a worker's paradise, and she was the hottest, wore great shoes all the time too, being somewhat short.

Which reminds me, why do girls want to be tall again? It can't have anything to do with being attractive to men.

Open their pickle jars... Still laughing at that image.

Robert Cook said...

"The first thing I noticed about the painting is that the workers had less than the Western woman...She doesn't even seem to know that they are there."

What's unusual about that?

tim in vermont said...

See! Bobby Cook buys into it instantly!

Under a Sander's Administration, the art will depict a man with too many shoes, or an evil industrialist creating too many brands of deodorants.

Socialism is in a constant struggle against human nature and capitalism is a constant expression of it. Socialists are the ones who are constantly freaked out about people being too free. That's why they need the constant propaganda.

tim in vermont said...

Althouse will be among the first to the wall for this posting. Don't worry though, maybe they can get you a cute executioner like Che! He would shoot people in the head with his personal revolver at his personal expropriated garden wall before sitting down to a lovely tropical breakfast.

Everything was first class when you were executed personally by Che Guevara! That's why his poster is used to class up so many dorm rooms and Democrat apartments to this day!

tim in vermont said...

Sanders latest promise is to "strengthen and expand Social Security."

So basically he wants to raise taxes on some people to allow other people not to work. That's not socialism, that's vote buying. In socialism, as the painting shows, there is the presumption that people will work, just not at the kind of effete professions that dominate employment in Manhattan, for example.

Under a Sanders administration all will be guaranteed a job, but none will be forced to work!

Brando said...

I can understand how the "good" one will have some attractiveness disadvantages over the "evil" one--a good socialist woman would not wear makeup or have her hair done fancy, and will have to wear some formless jumpsuit because she's a good worker. But the "evil" one could have been made less attractive--fatter, older looking, perhaps overly made up. Maybe the artist subconsciously was attracted to the "evil" capitalist women, and demonstrated that here.

I recall in Ayn Rand's novels you could always tell who was good and evil (by Rand's standards) simply by her physical descriptions. Evil socialist types were always round and unpleasant, while good objectivist types were taller and angular. I'd think "couldn't some of the bad guys have been good looking, and maybe some good guys who weren't much to look at?"

Robert Cook said...

"Socialism is in a constant struggle against human nature and capitalism is a constant expression of it."

I'd say each expresses certain aspects of human nature. You ignore that human nature can be rapacious and brutal, so stating that capitalism is a "contant expression" of human nature contains an inherent condemnation of capitalism.

Simon Kenton said...

He's got that hand on her shoulder. Most of us men here, except of course for the redoubtable Laszlo, have put that hand there. It means, "Shit, no! Her!? No way. Why, you can tell just by looking that she makes little feminine cries when she comes, not womanly grunts. And there's not a chance she could run a riveter like you, plus she could never beat me arm-wrestling the way you did last week. No, dear, I haven't the faintest interest in her."

Brando said...

"Sanders latest promise is to "strengthen and expand Social Security.""

I don't know what he means by "expands" but it's hard to imagine that being a good idea. The system does need "strengthening" though in the sense that changes need to be made if it won't go bankrupt soon. Though I don't think it would be a sudden collapse so much as a gradual decrease in benefits until future beneficiaries are getting only a small percentage of what they put in for their lifetime.

Which is still pretty cruel and disgusting when you think about it--everyone including low income workers being forced to have a big chunk of their paycheck deposited into a system that often overpays even wealthy retirees and then getting very little of it back when they retire. That money at least could have been put into the bank so there'd be some savings.

This is what our government has done and it should outrage everyone.

Robert Cook said...

"This is what our government has done and it should outrage everyone."

Not "everyone" is an idiot. Social Security has been a highly successful program, and most people are very happy we have it and do not want it to be dismantled.

tim in vermont said...

I'd say each expresses certain aspects of human nature. You ignore that human nature can be rapacious and brutal, so stating that capitalism is a "contant expression" of human nature contains an inherent condemnation of capitalism.

Like I said, socialists are wont to condemn human nature and seek to "tame" it by the removal of human freedom. Remember the old song "People everywhere just want to be free"? Oldthink! Dangerous!

We don't have any argument here Robert, despite your attempt to create one.

tim in vermont said...

Talk about the fallacy of the excluded middle. The only choices for SS are to "Strengthen and expand it" or to "dismantle" it.

But I have been reliably informed by lefty posters here that I have a child like Manichean view of reality and they see the nuances... LO FUCKING L.

Robert Cook said...

"We don't have any argument here Robert, despite your attempt to create one."

I'm not trying to create an argument, just pointing out the obvious.

tim in vermont said...

Exactly, as I have also pointed out the obvious that socialists find human nature abhorrent and seek to stifle it in every possible way.

To you it is "obvious" that human nature is evil, rapacious, whatever. You would make a good Puritan preacher, that's for sure. To me it is "obvious" that it was Western Capitalists who had to clean up the environment in Eastern Europe, and that when industry is run by the state, there is no adversarial relationship to keep each of them honest.

I am sure you find such an adversarial system wasteful. Hitler did too, that was the point he was making in that little excerpt from Mien Kampf, that it was far more efficient for these little disputes to be settled by a single all powerful state and in due course, "we will bury you [capitalists]" with our productivity!

James Pawlak said...

It appears that you prefer the image and model of a department store mannequin VS. a real woman who can do a day's work and then have the energy to give her real man a good tumble in bed.

Robert Cook said...

"To you it is 'obvious' that human nature is evil, rapacious, whatever."

It is obvious that human beings can be and are often brutal and rapacious yes. This is our animal nature asserting itself. You can characterize it as "evil," if you like, but that is subjective. By your remarks, do you mean to deny that human beings can be and often are brutal and rapacious or that it is an aspect of our character?

"To me it is "obvious" that it was Western Capitalists who had to clean up the environment in Eastern Europe...."

Hahahahaha!

tim in vermont said...

So you don't think that Western capitalists paid for the cleanup of Eastern Europe, or is it that you don't think the socialists made a complete mess of the place? Which is it?

And as for brutal, I think that the twentieth century is replete with examples of socialist brutality which reduce examples of free market brutality (genocide in Ukraine vs the Pinkertons) to quibbling.

Rapacious is a funny word. Some might say that the East Germans use of brown, uranium contaminated, coal for power generation was, in fact, rapacious, since they did not consider their environment in their lust for electric power.

One might also consider what the Chi-Coms have done, in their stop on a dime conversion to fascism, to their environment.

It is always funny to me that we are told that fascism is the polar opposite of communism, and yet the communists seem to manage to change to fascism with little more than a change to their letterhead.

Robert Cook said...

You refuse to say whether you think brutality and rapaciousness is an aspect of human character, but lamely try to insinuate brutality is only the result of particular social systems you don't like. All social systems are reflections of human character. Human nature is the progenitor of all we create, good and bad. You ignore that capitalist entities are as culpable as the East Germans in their willingness to poison the environment in their lust for (profit).

tim in vermont said...

but lamely try to insinuate brutality is only the result of particular social systems you don't like.

Yes, a couple of hundred years ago, unfettered human freedom, among many other factors, resulted in the North American Amerind genocide. Much of it, of course, accomplished through the power of the state.

Since then, to find a really cracking genocide though, you have to go to the socialists or their fraternal twin, the fascists.

Robert Cook said...

Why limit your acknowledgement of human rapacity and brutality to genocide? (Obviously, because it suits your argument to avoid acknowledging anything you can't blame on social systems you don't like. And you ignore the brutal wars America has waged in just the last half-century driven by our own rapacity.)There are many ways in which we exert brutality, individually and socially, and many individual and social behaviors driven by rapacity. (Did you see the NYTimes article this weekend on the working conditions at Amazon.com? I would say it is certainly brutal, and it certainly driven by Amazon's rapacity. And who can forget the financial collapse of 2008 driven by the rapacity and greed of the big banks and financial institutions?)

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William said...

I read the comments with interest. When did dark glasses and dark hair become part of an anti-Semitic stereotype? You're stereotyping anti-Semites. They're not that subtle......In the siege of Leningrad, just about all government services broke down. The one exception was the security service. If you complained too volubly about starving to death, you risked arrest and execution.......Lots of people starved to death in Ireland during the famine years and even later. The powers at that time didn't want to interfere with the smooth workings of laissez faire capitalism. But you were allowed to complain about starving to death.

Drago said...

Robert Cook, when he isn't fantasizing about HWBush jetting about the globe in an SR-71 & cutting deals with Iranian hostage takers, stands atop the mass graves of tens of millions at the hands of his leftist amigos to say: hey, boy, those free Americans sure have to work long hours sometimes and often don't save enough for retirement!

So, you know, it's all the same.

I'm surprised he didn't throw the Crusades in there as well.

Drago said...

And, right on cue...

Cookie: "(Did you see the NYTimes article this weekend on the working conditions at Amazon.com?"

Crazy working conditions at Amazon vs no freedom and mass graves?

What to do? What to do?

It's so hard to choose!

Drago said...

William: "You're stereotyping anti-Semites. They're not that subtle......In the siege of Leningrad, just about all government services broke down. The one exception was the security service."

No one ever said the leftists were incapable of prioritizing effectively to further their own immediate interests.

BN said...

"Socialism is in a constant struggle against human nature"

I know what you mean, but isnt stealing as basic to human nature as it gets? Socialists have simply concocted a clever cover.

BN said...

Of course, trying to keep your stuff is also human nature. Hence all the torture, gulags, killing & such.

tim in vermont said...

According to the Social Security Trustees, the cash-flow deficit over the next 75 years is approaching $40 trillion.

But I bet we can fix it with a simple tax on the rich that won't harm the economy. And meanwhile, Obama has been making the problem worse by making it easier to collect disability out of the "trust fund."

"Apres moi? Le deluge!" Favorite sayings of boy kings.

But giving away 40 trillion dollars will certainly be popular for the receivers! You guys have taken about 16% of just about every dollar I have earned over my lifetime, and I do expect to get something of it back, that makes me a huge supporter of the whole Ponzi scheme, actually, more like one of Madoffs victims hoping to get some small portion of the stolen funds back.

And yes, working at Amazon is just as bad as being sent to the archipelago of Gulags.

lemondog said...

Woman on right reminiscent of a Picasso

William said...

Women on the left gives off an Audrey Hepburn vibe, albeit a hostile one. Maybe the artist one to point out the dark side of Holly Golightly.

Brando said...

"Not "everyone" is an idiot. Social Security has been a highly successful program, and most people are very happy we have it and do not want it to be dismantled."

What should outrage everyone is how the government has created a system to require the poor to pay for the retirement of the rich, making no provision for the poor to have anything left when they retire. Perhaps I'm an "idiot" for finding this offensive, and you're smart enough to believe it'll all work itself out somehow without cutting benefits or jacking up taxes far more steeply the longer they put off this problem.

Gusty Winds said...

Wow. Either and epic fail on my part, the artist's.

When I first glanced at the picture I thought, "I'd rather sleep with the woman on the left, and so would the guy in the middle".

I do recognize the rest of the interpretation regarding ruins, clouds etc...but first had to get the 'who would I rather sleep with' assessment out of the way. All men do it. Then we can move on to more deeper meaning.

But, the sexuality on the left trumps the breeder's hips and the man hands on the right.

Nichevo said...

The guy meanwhile looks like a Polish nobleman, not a Polish peasant. Anyone concur or otherwise? I had a Russian gf tell me once I looked like a Polish nobleman. Pretty sure it was a compliment.

Gusty Winds said...

I had the chance to travel to Poland in March of 2014. I've never such a dense concentration of white people in all my life. Warsaw has an international flavor, but we were about 2.5 hrs north in Bailystock, and it seemed like there wasn't one immigrant in the whole city. There were more smoking hot blonde women than I have ever seen. Amazing. Better than Broadway Street in Nashville.

Everything that the communists left behind was just square and lifeless. All function, no form. Even the train we rode from Warsaw to Bailystock was a leftover communist train. The toilet was just a hole in the floor that just dumped on the tracks.

At a business dinner I asked those of age about the difference between living under communist control, and the newer capitalist system. They seemed eager to prove themselves in the competitive global market.

It was interesting too, but understandable, that they despised Russians more than Germans. Of the Russians they just said it was a different way of thinking that they weren't interested in understanding.

But for all the horrible things that happened on their land in the 20th Century, they were not bitter. They just seemed eager to move forward.

Nichevo said...

You put a Pole in a room with a German and a Russian and give him a gun with one bullet. Which one to shoot (the other he'll go for with his bare hands)?

Answer: The German - business before pleasure

William said...

I'm no fan of social realism, but I'd rather wander in a gallery full of such paintings than in a collection of abstract expressionist masterpieces......This painting has a certain amount of ambiguity and has inspired a wide variance of responses. Is there any chance that this might be because the artist is talented?

lgv said...


Blogger Nichevo said...
You put a Pole in a room with a German and a Russian and give him a gun with one bullet. Which one to shoot (the other he'll go for with his bare hands)?

Answer: The German - business before pleasure


Wrong. He will always shoot the Russian. I toured Poland in 1974. They had no problem with Germans. When the Soviet big cheese got up to give his speech, the heckling began. It was very weird for this naive teen. The anti-Soviet undercurrent was near boiling even then. The Ddansk Solidarity strike happened 6 years later.

Robert Cook said:
"Social Security has been a highly successful program, and most people are very happy we have it and do not want it to be dismantled."

Laughable. Same type of support of Obamacare. First, no one wanted it "dismantled"? People wanted it restructured in order to be fiscally solvent in the future. It is successful because it has overtaxed everyone and created surplus. People are happy with it, but the surplus disappears in 20 years. Someone has to pay more. Those people will not be as happy with it. The people that are happy with it will go down significantly. People will be less happy.

People on Obamacare like Obamacare. People who have to support the ever increasing subsidies to people on Obamacare may not like it so much.

lgv said...

"Social Security has been a highly successful program, and most people are very happy we have it and do not want it to be dismantled."

Laughable. Same type of support of Obamacare. First, no one wanted it "dismantled"? People wanted it restructured in order to be fiscally solvent in the future. It is successful because it has overtaxed everyone and created surplus. People are happy with it, but the surplus disappears in 20 years. Someone has to pay more. Those people will not be as happy with it. The people that are happy with it will go down significantly. People will be less happy.

People on Obamacare like Obamacare. People who have to support the ever increasing subsidies to people on Obamacare may not like it so much.

Beach Brutus said...

The professor's deconstruction of this piece shows why we should release all the Nazi art locked away in salt mines -- so people can make fun of it.

Nichevo said...

Lgv, please reread what I posted.

Unknown said...

Ann,
The woman in white is a [Jewish?] capitalist come to see her Polish tenants in a rural farm that she bought. The guy want to bed her. The [Jewish?] capitalist wants to temp him because it will reinforce her sense of being superior to them both, while humiliating the Polish woman at the same time. Eventually, the Polish woman will kill the Jewish babe with a shovel. Her man will feed her body to his pigs. In 24 months they'll slaughter the swine, roast the pig and eat it with a sauterne wine and kraut. They toast the dead woman's memory and sing and laugh at the deceased 'capitalist' worldly woman.

After all why did the Germans put largest death camp in Poland? Because they knew the POLES WOULD NEVER HELP THE JEWS... ORso they thought.

wildswan said...

Maybe I'm missing something but the houses behind the woman in white don't look like ruins - they look like houses in Dutch or German paintings. They look like nice family houses while behind the worker-Poles you get your Brutalism apartments. Also under socialism, apparently, workers have no money and are working with hand held tools. Socialist Realism, indeed.

PS Fangor's life: "In 1961, he left Poland and settled in West Berlin between 1964–1965, in England between 1965–1966, then from 1966 in the United States, where he lectured on art at art schools. He returned to Poland in 1999." His paintings in the west look like the sunglasses in this poster.

PPS: By this means I am evading censorship since obviously I am referring to Hillary's vision - of herself and for the rest of us - as displayed at the Iowa State fair.