Niepokoje o post-człowieczeństwo: Witkacy i Wyndham Lewis a doświadczenie Wielkiej Wojny

The following article discusses the impact of the First World War on the work of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy), and a British modernist polymath, Wyndham Lewis. Both artists took part in the combat on the Eastern and Western Fronts respectively, which proved to be a transformative experience and informed their creation during and after the war. Dissatisfied with the development of the avant-garde he had once helped to establish, Wyndham Lewis departed from mainstream modernism by exploring the legacy of wartime violence and by styling himself as a counter-cultural figure. Likewise, Witkacy swam against the tide of optimism, prevalent in the newly restored Polish state. His writings and paintings offered visions of the world shattered beyond repair, where the only possible kind of existence is in fact pseudomorphic and where happiness is achieved through a suspension of critical faculties, or by sinking to the level of beasts consciously.