Lesław Miśkiewicz, a very much reserved artist, nearly ascetic in his art, managed to shape his artistic vision in such a suggestive way, that his expression encoded in graphic pictures is always convincing and personal, when compared with works of other Polish contemporary artists.

This clarity of creative concept resulted in the author's strong position among the most outstanding Polish graphic artists. Originality of his artistic achievements originates both from the poetic and contemplative character of his artistic vision, the purity of his workshop which means being faithful to the technique of classical woodcut, rigorous discipline of work and last but not least precision, subtlety and unusual visual sensitivity. Since the very beginning of his independent creative work Lesław Miśkiewicz has been faithful to one technique. In spite of his very good knowledge of the newest techniques, especially electronic ones, despite all the potential alternatives offered by materials other than wooden plate used in relief print, like for example linoleum - he has been using the technique of classical woodcut for many years, treating it as the embodiment of his creative concept.

The few linocuts were mainly connected with early figurative works made in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to the author's documents, the last linocut was made in 1987. Lesław Miśkiewicz's creative work is exceptionally uniform. Since the individual stylistic features were established, his graphic works have been characterised by a quasi - abstract form and great subtlety of means of visual expression. The artist reduces the potential of visual language to much limited means of expression such as line, point, sets of points and lines, a surface obtained by multiplication of lines. We can notice how rich and varied this language is only in the course of the analysis of particular works.

Lesław Miśkiewicz started his artistic activity with relatively varied works as far as style is concerned, both figurative and abstract, made in the late 1970s and in the early 1980s. The middle of 1980s was the turning point when purified uniform bright woodcuts appeared composed on the basis of thin lines, reminding of a delicate transient fabric or network penetrated by light. The early figurative works had a clearly expressionist character, which can also be observed in abstract graphic works from the period between 1980 -1984. The later works from the late 1980s are typical of Miśkiewicz's personality. The works which are perceived as an individual artistic expression and bring the artist many awards, among which there is twice the 2nd award at the 6th and 7th all-Poland Graphic Competition named after Józef Gielniak in Jelenia Góra (1987 and 1989), Statutory Award - Prix ex aequo at the International Biennial of Graphics in Kraków (1988), the 1st award at the 11th all-Poland Competition of Graphics in Łódź (1989).

It is not an easy task to find the right key to analyse Lesław Miśkiewicz's graphic work. We can certainly do a diachronic analysis and go into the genesis, development and character of the author's works in the particular periods of his artistic activity. It would also be worth making a comparative presentation concerning the use of classical woodcut graphic workshop by Lesław Miśkiewicz and other contemporary Polish graphic artists who chose the technique as the predominant one - in order to prove the artist's creative uniqueness. Despite all the attempts necessary to make a reliable critical review they are hardly helpful to reveal the content of the author's work which at present is in current artistic circulation and has its own distinct stylistic and meaningful characteristics.

For me Lesław Miśkiewicz's work is a continuous exercise connected with the woodcut technique - the exercise which is technical, artistic and spiritual. It is an attempt to achieve self-improvement in order to reach the mastery of form. Miśkiewicz is interested in the relationship between what is physical and visual - physical and material aspects which are the basis of visuality. The author exploits the visual potential of one technique - the area of visuality this technique offers. We should take into account woodcut as an autonomous artistic technique independent of reproductive functions connected with print or the one which serves the purpose of painting or drawing. Lesław Miśkiewicz seems to be truly concerned with penetrating the extreme potential powers of woodcut technique. In this sense his work takes such an important position in the present picture of Polish graphic art.

So frequently emphasised unistic and geometric elements in Miśkiewicz's work are the groundwork, motif rather than the essence or the 35 main subject of his works. The main subject is the interpretation of the woodcut technique performed on the foundation of pure visuality. These experiments with powers of woodcut are always very personal in their character, predominated by subtlety and poetry. The period taken into consideration by this review includes the last six years of the author's work (1994 - 2000 editor's note). In Lesław Miśkiewicz's artistic work this period is a very important moment. At this time many significant works were created. Despite the fact that this period is not distinguished by any radically different character of works, the graphic works made at this time enrich the previous work of the artist in a very serious way adding new reflections and solutions to the seemingly established phenomenon which the artist's work was, so much welcome at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s.

Besides the works which surprise by their visual and technical solutions, like a relatively gloomy work from 1996 with a dense network of soft lines, thicker vertical ones and thin horizontal ones, reminding of the relation between the weft and warp, for which the artist got another 2nd award at the 9th all - Poland Competition named after Józef Gielniak (1996) - there are also very personal graphic works: from 1998 - 'Pamięci Matki' ('In Memory of Mother') or from 1999 - 'Pamięci Ojca' ('In Memoty of Father'). Both graphic works mentioned above as well as the third untitled work from 1999 are a kind of plates reminding of the 17th century Polish folk woodcuts with the signs of Zachariah's cross, which had a magic power (e.g. they were to protect against diseases), interpreted by Józef Gielniak too ('Przeciw chorobom' ('Against Diseases')), (1960). The first two works are based on very simple symmetrical axial division of the circle, discreetly referring to the sign of cross and they are built of the simplest perceptive elements - different size of points. Emanation of light was obtained by point congestion and scattering, though each point is endowed with its own individual visual life which is the result of the technique of cutting out the matrix manually.

The third of the works mentioned here is made of short mobile pieces of lines vibrating around two small circles situated on both sides of the graphic works. The impression of twinkling brightness which the author obtained in this graphic work reminds of some formal effects adopted from Van Gogh with a painted vibrating sun. Lesław Miśkiewicz's works from the late 1990s seem to be the essence of his experience so far and simultaneously they are an announcement of new creative powers, opening the sequence of various thematic areas. They are an example of great productive freedom and, despite the whole reduction of means of expression, they are much varied as far as the final visual solutions are concerned.

Lesław Miśkiewicz's work constitutes a fundamental element of the Łódź graphic scene - it originates from the artistic line of professor Stanisław Fijałkowski and professor Andrzej Marian Bartczak, who were his teachers and from whom he obtained a lot for his own work. It seems, however, that working out his own artistic solutions, especially in the works from the late 1980s and 1990s, he gradually managed to transfer all these elements into his own artistic vision. The author works in the environment of graphic artists connected with the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Łódź belonging to the in-between generation, together with Krzysztof Wawrzyniak, Zbigniew Purczyński czy Witold Kaliński he creates an interesting generation picture of the Łódź graphic art in its part strongly marked with success in the field of relief print.

The concept of graphic art represented by Lesław Miśkiewicz is radical in its classical character. Exploring exclusively black and white one - matrix print causes that the whole message conveyed is focussed on its visual layer. The carrier of a picture stays neutral - making the picture more precise as the perceptual phenomenon becomes the most important element. Lesław Miśkiewicz rarely uses a patch, his graphic pictures are to a large extent based on the line value, especially on its musical melodic character (...)

A fragment of a review referring to Lesław Miśkiewicz's artistic and didactic activity included in the procedure of appointing him a professor.

Professor Jan Pamuła,
Kraków, 14th May, 2000