How landscapes are understood in human life can be linked to successive stages in the evolution of art and imagery. How humans perceive the world around us is reflected in how artists craft the messages they want to convey.

Art and science employ different languages, but they both strive to get to know and understand the world.

In this paper, the question of religious potential of contemporary art is posed only in relation to visual arts, which contain the concept of religious art. The difficulty in answering it stems from the lack of consensus on the relevant criteria for determining if a given work of art is a religious one. These criteria might include the author’s faith and the religious topic, the liturgical or devotional function, as well as a style that is capable of expressing the sacred. The issue of how these criteria function in contemporary art cannot be answered without taking a closer look at two moments essential for the development of religious art. The first was the Renaissance, when the aesthetic values of a work began to give way to theological determinants. The second was the nineteenth century with its attempts to create a new canon of religious art. Both of these critical moments in the development of sacred art show that the religious potential of art depends on the concomitance of many factors. The main problem is finding a new form, a new style able to express the sacred and engage in dialogue with contemporary art as once the icon would.

The concept of social art is not exactly new, dating back to at least the 1970s. Its current revival, however, creates an opportunity to reconsider the social and civic potential of artistic practices.

The text begins with etymological reflections on the term “art” in various European languages and its numerous connotations. Five main basic meanings of the notion of art are enumerated and described, such as: disposition for action, this very action, the realm of life consisting of some kind of actions, the rules of action, and the results of action. Subsequently, two main traditional purposes of artistic actions are indicated and characterized, which are beauty and reality. This pair of notions implies four kinds of artistic creation: aesthetic/anti-aesthetic mimetism/ antimimetism. The term of mimetism can be applied both to the imitation of nature, as well as to the imitation of preceding artists. In the latter interpretation, a different classification appears: classical/original mimetism/antimimetism. Next, Maria Gołaszewska’s definition of contemporary art is discussed in the light of previous analysis. In the conclusion of the essay the final characteristic of contemporary art is presented with a quote from Arthur Rimbaud’s poem, as “absolutely modern”.

To be an art conservator, one needs to have the skills of an accomplished painter, the knowledge of an art historian, the enthusiasm of a chemist, and the nose of a detective – says Marta Zaborowska from the Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

What creative process is involved in creating a painting? Where does artistic inspiration come from?

Art has never aspired to wield authority to the same extent as science, because it left a wide margin for itself resulting from the intrinsic consent to the subjectivity of both the creator and the audience.

Our thoughts, when unmolded by words, can take the form of images. We may find it hard to discuss such weighty issues as “evil” or “violence” verbally, but artists can help us shed new light on these concepts and thus to better understand the world around us.

The process of authenticating artworks, whether musical, painting or architectural, is constantly changing. And sometimes it is influenced by ideology.

What is the importance of art in shaping a child’s personality and molding them for the future?

We talk about the crossovers between science and art with the artist and pedagogue Prof. Adam Wsiołkowski.

The text attempts to show the forgotten beauty in architecture. It seems, that the “drawn” architecture can reveal more than the real — built one. The avant-garde of the early 20th century killed in art the need to strive for beauty. Novelty and contemporarily advertising form of architecture are becoming the most important. However, the problem of beauty seems to be still interesting in art. Architecture is slowly departing from the functionalist way of creating, yet it cannot return to the beauty, that once was so important. It is the drawn one, carrying the message of unreality, that makes it possible to return to the forgotten approach to creation. Architects’ drawings can bring back a visionary and idealistic message.

The presence of art in historic representative buildings is widespread and common. It is not surprising, therefore, that it is a frequent tool used in the transformation processes of these structures. A surprise, however, may be a situation where, instead of the art from the period of the creation of a given monument, the contemporary, multimedia or engaging the viewer cultural activities occur. Therefore, the key questions are the role of such forms of intervention in the historical representative interiors and the possibility of co-existing old and new. It is not without significance for objects under conservator’s protection that there are special requirements that the intervention must fulfill to be installed. The subject of considerations in this work are case studies of the application of contemporary multimedia art in the representative spaces of historical objects. The purpose of the article is to examine types of such artistic interventions resulting from the relationship between a work of art and exhibition space and their mutual influence.

The aim of this text is to reflect upon Polish research on the art of women. The analysis focus on syntheses, published in book form, devoted to a group of female artists working at a specific time and place. This analysis shows the shape of research on women’s art in Poland, the consequences of it and the perspectives for the future.

The article presents an account of the origins, course and effects of a trip to Poland in September 1969 by the Italian writer, journalist and painter Dino Buzzati (1906–1972). In Warsaw, Buzzati met the painter Maria Anto, with whom he formed a brief but intense artistic relationship.

Learning to experience art involves training one’s sensitivity, empathy, tolerance and interpretation.

Museum exhibits and collections can be presented in a variety of ways. Studying how museum displays have developed over the years can tell us much about the history of science.

In this paper we described three Art & Science projects organized by the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology (Polish Academy of Sciences), Marcel Nencki Foundation for the Support of Biological Sciences and the Art Department of the University of Rzeszów. First project, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Nencki Institute, was entitled “Biological imaging: inspiration by invisible world” and took place in Mikołajki in 2017. Next two projects were relating to “Art of Biodiversity” (Rzeszów, 2018) and “Power of Biological Structures” (Przeworsk, 2019). The aim of the projects was to introduce ideas of modern experimental biology to artist. All symposia/workshops were followed by few exhibitions at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Art Department of the University of Rzeszów, etc. Some of paintings originated during these projects established Nencki Art Collection, collection of modern art at Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology.

During the first fourteen years of transformation, 1989-2003, according to surveys by the author of the paper hereby, there have been erected in Kraków the twelve new churches. Author already published the result of survey depending the first six of therm. So herewith there are last six shrines described. The way of creating them is significant and characteristic for contemporary Polish architecture in general, and particular typical for the trend of a new ecclesiastic architecture. Itr is a special mixture of the tradition, hence completed with aesthetic of Late Modernism, Post-Modernism, and the newest incorporation of Modernism – of the XXI C.

What shared intellectual foundations underpin collaboration between the artistic community and scientists? What benefits can artists and biologists derive from working together? Can their very different spheres of creativity support one another?

Fifty years after Linda Nochlin wrote her essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? female artists are still struggling with limitations, a weak position in the field of art and their own dependence on others. In the text I discuss selected works of artists from Central Europe, which indicate the gender and geographical dependencies prevailing in the Western art world. Such artists as Tanja Ostojić, Anetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkáčova, Agata Zbylut and Aneta Grzeszykowska use diversion and mimicry strategies in their art, and the artists themselves can be described as tricksters.

This article considers what might have happened had the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury lived long enough to see his planned book of art theory, Second Characters, into publication. It suggests that Second Characters would have challenged, and perhaps supplanted, Jonathan Richardson the Elder’s Theory of Painting (1715) as the first substantial and original British contribution to the theory of art. Much of the article consists of a comparison between Richardson’s Theory of Painting and the ‘Plasticks’ section of Second Characters, for which Shaftsbury’s notes survive. This comparison suggests that the theory of painting which Shaftesbury would have offered to his compatriots would have differed from that offered by Richardson in certain important respects. Primarily addressing his text to his fellow aristocratic patrons rather than to painters, Shaftesbury’s vision for the future of British art was both more high-minded and more narrow than that offered by Richardson. For Shaftesbury the moral subject matter of painting was all-important, and the artistic traits he most admired, including historical subjects, grandeur of scale and austerity of style, were those he saw as best placed to transmit that moral subject matter. Richardson, by contrast, was for more tolerant of the extant British taste for portraits and more sensual styles and offered a theory of art which was in part formalist. The article also stresses the importance of the equation Shaftesbury made between the social and political health of a society and the quality of its art, and suggests that had Second Characters been published at the time when it was written we might now consider Shaftesbury, rather than Winckelmann, as the father of the social history of art. The article ends by considering two possible outcomes had Second Characters been published in the early eighteenth century, in one of which it had a profound impact on British art and British attitudes to art, and in the other of which Shaftesbury’s refusal to compromise with current British tastes condemned his text to no more than a marginal status.

This article discusses Shaftesbury’s fragmentary ‘Dictionary of art terms’, an appendix to the unfinished Plastics, and its relevance in establishing an aesthetic and moral art theory in Britain. The article argues that, although the ‘Dictionary’ is rudimentary, it already reveals enough information to assess it as an important document of English art philosophy. Given that Shaftesbury’s dictionary project was the first English attempt to produce a theoretical art dictionary, it is discussed in the light of traditions of the art dictionary in this country. The study clarifies notions of the dictionary’s art terms through comparative analyses with the use of the words in the aesthetic discourses in the Plastics. It looks at Shaftesbury’s creation of novel words based on classical literature and his use of contemporary literary sources which was partly ambivalent, for fear that only words were transferred from their original context but no ideologies that the author disapproved of. With the help of exemplary discussions of Shaftesbury’s art vocabulary, the study illustrates the shaping of an aesthetic vocabulary in England.