In the final seminar paper, I focus on the role and importance of narcotics in the creativity of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz based on his theoretical background and practical experiments. The artist has been active in many fields, including a rather extensive body of art theory writing, that puts Pure Form at the forefront. The theory purports that the essence of art is form, which awakens, with its purity, a »metaphysical feeling« in the person. In an art piece of Pure Form, the content becomes irrelevant and can be completely arbitrary, whereas the form becomes its essential component. Even though the content is irrelevant, it is still necessary, as the artist must be present in the creation with their whole essence, which consists of their intellect, mentality and all the circumstances in which they create, including also possible intoxication with psychoactive substances. All these factors are the reason for the artist's finished product being this specific work of Pure Form. In his point of view, art is based on awakening the »metaphysical feeling« in the observer, which with increasing mechanization and the accelerated pace of life we are moving further and further away from. Such development is inevitably followed by the collapse of art, which will nevertheless try to hold onto its existence by finding new means of expression that lead to the »insatiability of form« and consequently to the abundance of all different forms. In the process of degeneration, artists are trying to find new means of expression in every possible way and experimenting with narcotic substances is one of them. Since the substances under the influence of which the artist found themselves at the time of creation have nothing to do with the objective construction of Pure Form, Witkacy does not attribute relevance to narcotics. In his conception, perhaps their significance is not crucial for art as such, but narcotics are too integral an ingredient in S. I. Witkiewicz’s creative work to be that easily disregarded.
|
