Recapturing Values

The attitude presented by Szymon Ryczek, assuming an open manifestation of a particular ideological and worldview perspective in art, is not popular among young artists. It can also be risky. Art characterised by religiousness often tends to be simplified and pretentious. In this context it would be good to cite the author who says: The lie of the work of art consists in the fact that evil often looks a lot more attractive than good. The image of good seems to be dull, with a tendency to turn into mundane bigotry. My goal is to create works of art which never glorify nothingness, facing death with a song that praises goodness, the divine creation. It happens that I present the image of evil, but I never praise it. I illustrate the states of the human soul in a symbolic way, encouraging everybody to reflect on their own soul.

Only the artist’s exceptional care about the craftsmanship, a balance between the message and formal content can result in a work of art which has real value and appeals to the viewer. Szymon Ryczek is aware of this fact. His works are worked out, technically good subtle graphics. His woodcuts and plaster prints are universal. The theme evoked by a biblical motif relates to the issues which have been crucial from the point of view of every human being from the very beginning of our existence. The works touch universal problems, the system of moral-ethical values, and in a wider context, the relation man – God. The theme originates from the conviction that the modern man is losing ties with the absolute, and transcendence has been less and less important in our life.

Such a claim corresponds with those who advocate for the need to return to the eternal values that strengthen the world order and give inner peace to the man. Szymon Ryczek talks about it from his own perspective and for his own sake. Thus his graphics are an edifying message full of narrative and anecdotal references. The artist relates to the biblical parables and their fundamental motifs, which are the obviously universal content and values, at the same time pointing to the modern man (and himself), to important moral dilemmas, to what constitutes human faith, love, responsibility and steadfastness. They are important reminders, especially in the era of domination of the homo politicus and homo economicus who often regard values as relative, when the driving force behind the human behaviour is the ideology of ‘the lesser evil’, and the end justifies the means.

Despite the fact that the message refers to the essential cultural motifs and symbols, we will not see any dramatic poses and gestures there. Adam and Eve expelled from the Paradise look like beautiful modern people, similarly to Bathsheba, who – let the author pardon me for saying that – can be associated with today’s iconographic sensuality patterns present, for example in advertising (regardless of the fact that in the author’s intention the classical figure of David’s wife – a quote from the 19th century painting – contrasted with a non-classical black geometric form is to refer to the opposition of good and evil). The man who in a symbolic way rebuilds the relationship with God, broken by Adam, and converts to faith, is a 20th-century astronaut. The face of the repentant or unrepentant hero of the story is a portrait of the contemporary man.

Szymon Ryczek deliberately relates to the sacred in an indirect, nonliteral way, being aware of the fact that it is hardly representational and almost impossible to comprehend. The situations featured in his graphic works are not antique-like. The titles of works and the author’s comments are the only elements which indicate the relation to the Bible.

There is no excess of information in the works. Like in a synthetic message, the symbolic background contrasts with the main imagery motif. In addition to figurative elements, there are abstract, more or less regular shapes often associated with particular symbolism.

Szymon Ryczek uses a variety of allusive means of expression, treating them equally with realistic images. The juxtaposition of the plaster print and woodcut technique, planes marked by longitudinal hatching or dots, representational and abstract, black and white; all these are the characteristic features of the language worked out by the artist. The character, density and power of lines and planes, contrasts of light and shade contribute to the emotional message translated into artistic values. These, in turn, are important not only as formal elements, but they have their own specific meanings (like the symbolic nature of colours), relating to the concepts spread between good and evil, sacred and profane.

The works are characterized by strong diversified graphic ‘texture’. The elements are dynamic, they vibrate, pulsate; lines, like beams of light, penetrate the space. These actions are not motivated by the will to show technical skills, though they are a visible manifestation of craftsmanship, but they come from a desire to balance the powerful main imagery theme. The background, like blue and golden planes of medieval paintings, expresses eternity.

It is a mystery full of humbleness, the area of spirituality. The artist is trying to express what is graphically inexpressible.

In the monastery church of the Norbertines in Strzelno there are unique Romanesque columns which in a figurative, allegorical form present contrasting values: virtues and vices. The symbolic psychomachy, which is a struggle for the soul of the hero, also takes place in Szymon Ryczek’s graphic works. He takes up the subject of man and his daily struggle with the forces of evil; he refers to archetypes, uses parables in which the main roles are played by personifications of values and ideas. Szymon Ryczek’s art draws attention to the suspension of the man (the contemporary man too) between two extreme attitudes: creation and destruction, finding God and his annihilation, faith and blasphemy, holiness and sin.

The author stresses that they do not belong to the true nature of man; they derive from the weakness which is a consequence of the original sin.

In art manifesting a specific attitude does not come down only to the problem of the message conveyed by a work of art, but also to the method of its expression. Turning towards the noble (appropriate to express sublime values), traditional, labour-consuming graphic techniques, overcoming their limitations, making large-scale works that can enhance a sense of majesty involved in the values of the sacred, becomes a kind of mission filled with dedication and tedious work, which gives it the character of ‘meditation’, understood as a reflection on a given fragment of the Bible during the execution of a graphic work.

The artist performs his work like a monk ‘writing’ an icon, which makes it stand out from other ordinary images on religious themes.

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Transl. Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska





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