Twórcze źródło - osobowość twórcza i dzieło Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza

Abstract

In this essay, the author, first of all, puts the question of the character of the creative well, resp. creative wells, and tries to put it down this category as an especially important one for the philosophical and esthetical thinking. Moreover, several questions are being asked connected with the problem of the creative well as relating to the creative personality and the cultural lot of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s work (mainly the philosophical and esthetical one). In connection with these questions, a drawing by Bronisław Wojciech Linde is being called up, which shows a double portrait of St. I. Witkiewicz. The question of the first-plan-Witkiewicz’s glance is posed. “Is it not a prophetic glance, directed towards the future destiny of culture, civilization and the world, and, at the same time, a glance of someone who sees his destiny as that of a creator?” The author underscores the essential difference between the well of creation and the creative well. He refers to the analogy perceptible between the idea of the well of creation and the creative well on the one hand, and the subject creating a work of art and the creative personality (as a category viewed in respect to the whole artistic achievement of an artist) on the other. Hence, the creative well is conceived as a raying meta-category and meta-well contrasted with various forms, contents and objectives that make up the realm of the creative experience of an artist and the wells of his creation. Moreover, an existential and cultural concept of the dimension of the creative well is being developed in reference to Georg Simmel’s work, who demonstrates the „mysterious unity” of the creative well. Subsequently, the concept of the creative well is confronted with St. I. Witkiewicz’s creative personality and work. The insights of Jan Leszczyński and Roman Ingarden are brought to bear upon the question of the creative personality. The problem of the cultural sense of St. I. Witkiewicz’s work is addressed, too, in connection to the formulae of Bohdan Michalski and Krzysztof Pomian. The next important step in the consideration is a reflection on St. I. Witkiewicz’s idea of the “metaphysical feelings” and the Mystery of Existence. The subjective and the objective dimensions are being shown. By dint of this reasoning, the fact of the creative well being possibly conceived not only in existent, existential, symbolic or reflective dimension, but also in that of the cultural destiny and interactions, appears neatly perceptible. For, the creative well shows up to be not only illuminating the cultural destiny of a work, but also piercing it and visible therein. At the end, the author returns to the “prophetic” glance of St. I. Witkiewicz in the drawing by Bronisław Linke. This glance is set down as emerging from the depths of the drawing, the depths being understood as a existent-existential dimension of the creative well: the glace of the closer-to-us-Witkiewicz directs itself towards cultural dimensions of the work, discovering thereby some new traits of Witkiewicz’s creative personality. In conclusion, the creative well is compared to the symbol of Diogenes’, the philosopher’s lamp searching for manhood in a man, the lamp that enables us to pierce and illuminate the hidden in – paradoxically – the daylight, the traits of manhood.