Poland’s Cultural Identity and the East
The Baroque era (1562 – 1764) was Poland’s Golden Age. It was a time when Poland was the largest nation in Europe. Its geography lent to a crossroads of East and West; a place where Slavs, Russians, Jews, Tartars, and Ottomans influenced a culturally diverse landscape. Artistic highlights from this period include royal wares, liturgical objects, paintings of nobility and religious images, rugs and textiles including pillaged Ottoman tents, decorative glassware and ceramics, equestrian items, and Hussar armor.Polish Baroque art is not well documented and I hope to examine Poland’s cultural identity. This would be a great topic to create a project about, simply for the fact that there is very little on this period in Poland’s history on the Internet, let alone print format.
The overall scope of the project is as a resource for learning – a teaching source for art history professors. It is essentially a source for students to learn the historiography and methodology of art history using the topic of Polish Baroque art. Through a narrative-based design, students will explore Poland’s culture by reading experts from literature, poetry, and most importantly travel/trade-related materials.
The text accompanying the images will provide the foundation for students to understand and appreciate the art of Baroque Poland. In order to gain the analytical skills necessary for an upper-level art history course, this site will contain a few signature images, which will be used by the students. For example, an image of Polish nobility will be juxtaposed with an Eastern-style portrait. Using Flickr’s tool of capturing aspects of the images questions will be posed. These questions will have the student “blog” about the similarities of Eastern and Polish styles, the differences of these styles, what sets the Polish costume apart form its neighbors to the East and West, etc. Other ideas for the site include an interactive map that shows the geographical depth of Poland and its landmarks, as well as trade routes. The trade routes can also be used as information for building a custom timeline, which will contain Poland’s interactions with its neighbors and trading allies of the Silk Road – building conversations on cultural transfer.
I will save the details for my presentation, but I hope this gives a good base. Art history is not just about images and artifacts but the cultural and historical context that surrounds the art. I hope that this site will be a good learning tool not only for students to understand the intricacies of an upper-level art history course, but also of the significance of Baroque Poland.