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Marcin SobieszczanskiCulture and Horror in The Painting of Henryk Beck
It is appropriate to note a shared characteristic of
father and son: the happiness of life. This happiness is reflected on two
different planes. On one hand, there is the happiness shared by the interaction
of human activity. There is also the happiness that is innate in life,
regardless of the circumstance, that not only has value but also brings with it
a symbolic dimension. In 1938, Henry Beck is painting with his fondest images
of his youth: sports, elegant cars, scientific books, and travels with good company.
Finally, there is a depiction of the synagogue’s cantor dressed in black. In
1941 Henry Beck did not omit to paint pastel colors onto thorny wires sticking
out from the ground. He did not halt at the banal juxtaposition of the Star of
David to the Hindu swastika, formed by the Fuehrer’s hand in a bloody circle.
It is perhaps strange to observe here the metaphor of photographing the
velocity of blood in capillaries as found in the Science Academy of Krakow.
Scientists may not like metaphors, but one of the main neuroimaging techniques
today is the graphic measure of blood-supply to brain ganglia. Beck’s
life-journey from his doctorate to his highest-qualifying academic rank was
much like the passage of electromagnetic waves, with both visible and invisible.
Adolph Beck lived in a time when the field of
physiology and neurophysiology was making significant strides, not only in
empirical inquiry but also in conceptual studies. The dialectic approach of the
19th Century – with «everything physical» or «everything spiritual»
– extended into the years in which Beck and his father lived. For example, the
nature of action potential was a source of contention between Galvani and Volta
concerning the nature of «animal electricity». Later the nature of the neuron
was elaborated, wherein the whole neuron plays a causative-active role. In both
approaches, the neuron is only a unit within a set of 1011 brain-neurons;
as such, it is difficult to postulate how the single unit can be the sole
causative-element of such higher-order functions of consciousness, symbolic
language, emotions, or esthetics. When the electromagnetic effect of the
electric impulse was elucidated, there opened a new horizon in experimental
method which allowed for a greater variety of inquiry ranging from the
elementary effects of matter to its global impact. One could investigate
electro- and neurobiological phenomena on many levels, depending on the
precision of instruments. In particular, physiologists from Lviv
began to consider brain-activity on an elemental level, and for the first time
they saw the possibility of understanding the causative connection between
elementary mechanisms and higher psychic activities inclusive of human culture
and the thought process. In the 1930s, in Germany (Hermann Schmidt) and later
in the US (Norbert Wiener) there was a vision of perceiving the biological body
as an entire neurosystem, which was a controlling
connection with its environment. This fragment of cognitive science was a
conceptual leap largely developed by Adolph Beck, who built upon the thinking
and creativity of Henry Beck. Whereas the life Henry Beck revolved around
activity in the highest academic circles, son Adolph’s scientific mission was
more concealed and independent from his circumstance; each approach reflected
the same power of inquiry. The creative side of Henry Beck was not well-known in
his generation, but there was some evidence of recognition within the Polish
and Russian interwar avant-garde. A range of art coexisted at the time, executed
locally but with aspiration for global fulfillment. As with his contemporary
artist Bruno Schultz, Beck was able to find his own artistic narrative. By the
1930s there emerged a division among eminent artists: those who were focused on
objective progress of their work, and those who sought the most intimate
inner-truth, irrespective of how it would expose their own shortcomings. When
look closely at Henry Beck’s renditions between 1917 and 1955 we see a formal
progress that adheres to the avant-garde style. In comparison, the «truth» in
artists Witkacy’s paintings is more elusive, founded
in the nakedness of simple detail. Beck’s watercolors during the War period impress the
viewer by their simplicity and radical understanding of the consequences of what
had transpired in this time. «Pogrom» was the name often given which reflected
the local manifestation of hatred and intolerance of the Russian Empire. From
1941, Beck’s watercolors gave this word as a descriptor for the War: the river
of corpses, waves of pallid faces, the dark mass of
death’s hell which formed a macabre scene. When will these ruins cease to
witness this conflagration? To this drama can be added the thousands that were
murdered in Lviv’s prisons by the NKVD and the murder
of Jews, wherein on barbed wire fluttered the shawl of a Jewish celebrant. This
same terror would be again relived by Beck in the drama of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising. Beck’s father did not survive this horrific drama of
the War, which saw men liquidated like animals. Henry Beck himself survived a
few years longer, preserving the reality of an artist. Many great thinkers of
this time considered returning to art after a return to normalcy from the harsh
ethical and religious stricture of the War. Musician and philosopher Theodor
Adorno asked himself this question, as well as philosopher Deborah Vogel, who
perished in the Janowska ghetto. Beck’s artistic truth was based on the fact that he
did not reject his faith in his living body, in a body innervated and animated
to promote new life. To convince oneself of this, it is enough to reflect upon
his painted postcard which he rendered in the year of his darkest despair after
the suicide of his father. The card depicts Hitler with a naked, elegant woman
from Galicia who apparently fell asleep just before war. Her beauty does cannot
be reconciled with the looming horror. Her breast are beginning to engorge with
milk, her thighs enlarging and arching in the characteristic pose of a pending
birth, the physiologic delivery of a newborn to the world. The title of this
pseudo-collage is the Delivery of the Gynecologist. After that, all is silence. Beck Zakrzewska,
J.: A daughter’s memories of Adolf Beck. W: Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis
(Red. M.A.B. Brazier), Suppl. 3: 57-59, 1973. Brazier, M.A.B: The historical development
of neurophysiology. W: Handbook of Physiology Vol. 1, Section 1:
Neurophysiology (Red. J. Field, H.W. Magoun, V.E.
Hall), American Physiological Society, Washington D.C., pp. 47-58, 1959 Brazier, M.A.B. (Red.): «Beck, A.: The
determination of localizations in the brain and spinal cord with the aid of
electrical phenomena». Acta Neurobiol. Exp. Suppl. 3: 1-55,
1973. Coenen, A., Zayachkivska,
O., Bilski, R.: In the footsteps of Beck: the
desynchronization of the electroencephalogram. Electroencephalography
and Clinical Neurophysiology 106: 330- 335, 1998. Coenen, A., Zayachkivska,
O., Konturek, S., Pawlik,
W.: Adolf Beck, co-founder of the EEG: an essay in honour
of his 150th birthday. - Kraków (Poland), Lviv (Ukraine), Nijmegen (The Netherlands) - Digitalis/Biblioscope (Utrecht), 2013. Jaworska, J.: Henryka Becka «Bunkier 1944
roku». Żydowski Institut Historyczny, Ossolineum, Wrocław, 1982 [In
Polish]. Kwapisz-Kulińska A. Jak żyć,
pracować i kochać można. 2012-06-01
http://studioopinii.pl/alina-kwapisz-kulinska-jak-zyc-pracowac-i-kochac-mozna/ [In Polish]. Lviv Interactiv. Vul. Bohomoltsia, 04 – residential
building http://www.lvivcenter.org/en/lia/objects/bohomoltsia-4/. Marianowski L. I Klinika
Położnictwa i Ginekologii WUM. Towarzystwo Lekarskie Warszawskie
http://www.tlw.waw.pl/index.php?id=24&newsy_id=166 [In Polish]. Pawlik, W.W., Konturek,
S.J., Bilski, R.: Napoleon Cybulski
– Polish pioneer in developing of the device for measuring blood flow velocity.
Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology 57 Suppl. 1: 107-118, 2006. Serwis informacyjny Biblioteki UMW. Gazeta Uczelniana N 2(217), Luty, 2016
http://www.umed.wroc.pl/gazeta_uczelniana/2016/217.pdf [In Polish]. Sobieszczański, M.: A Word About the Creativity of Adolf
and Henry Beck (in press), 2016. Stanisław Kopf: «Sto dni Warszawy» wyd.
Książka i wiedza Warszawa 1977 na podstawie: Adam Stomczyński, W
podziemiach zburzonej Warszawy, «Stolica» nr 6 z 1970. oraz Halina
Jędrzejewska Lekarze Powstania Warszawskiego 1VII – 2 X 1944 wyd. TLW oraz
Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego [In Polish]. Światowe wydanie akwarel Henryka Becka
/ Gazeta Lekarska, LUTY 11, 2016 http://www.gazetalekarska.pl/?p=21566 [In Polish]. Zayachkivska, O., Gzegotsky,
M., Coenen, A.: Impact on electroencephalography of
Adolf Beck, a prominent Polish scientist and founder of the Lviv
School of Physiology. International Journal of Psychophysiology 85: 3-6, 2012. Zayachkivska, O.: Remembering the 150th anniversary of the
birth of Adolf Beck (1863-1942). Physiology News, Apr: 12-13, 2014. Zayachkivska, O.: The world of Adolf Beck by eyes of Henryk Beck: total unofficial, BaK,
Lviv, 2013. |
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