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It
is difficult to characterize such a man as Jozef Chetmowski a thinker and
artist of a rich personality and numerous talents. He is often called a folk
artist. That notion does not express his rich personality, specificity of the
whole of his various achievements. Jozef Chetmowski is an artist walking his own
creative way, very much different from the most of other folk artists. Almost
everybody, regardless individual preferences referring to arts, philosophy of
life and knowledge, is interested in his creativity and feels admiration for
him. What is more, he is a joyful, nice man, open for the world and other
people. He has been creating for over thirty years. He
has had a great many individual and collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad.
He is visited by tourists and collectors from Poland, Germany and Scandinavian
countries. The biggest collection of his artistic works is presented in the
Muzeum Zachodnio - Kaszubskie (WesternKashubian Museum) in Byt6w, Muzeum
Etnograficzne (Ethnographic Museum) in Torun and Muzeum Narodowe (National
Museum) in Gdansk. A few documentaries and master - thesis concerning his
original creativity and personality as well as hundreds of press articles and
lots of brochures accompanying individual exhibitions have been made and written
so far. HOME Jozef Chetmowski lives on a farm situated on the
border of Brusy - a small town in the south of Kashubian region. The house is
surrounded by a beautiful garden where the artist created a fascinating world
full of Kashubian old peasant women and men, old farming things and bee-hives.
While entering the farm one is welcome by a little chapel with scenes from the
newest history of Poland. In front of the pre-war building there is a
"machine for catching the elements" with a huge wheel resembling that
of a mill as its most important part. The machine drives a figure of a sawyer
sawing wood. In other parts of the yard one can watch various sculptures and
technical constructions contrived by the author. There is an apiary in the
garden full of faceIike and figureIike bee-hives presenting figures of old
people, Kashubians and animals. The space of the farm and garden is dynamic,
subject to changes and being enriched all the time. Next to the house is a sculpture atelier where a collection of old Kashubian things and old books can be seen. The inside of Inside the house there are a few rooms: a
kitchen, a painting atelier, where the artist works, and two other rooms. The
kitchen and the living room is a kingdom of Mrs. Jadwiga, Jozef Chetmowski's
wife. They are like so many others everywhere. But the other room is filled with
furniture, sculptures, paintings, Christ-child's cribs and musical instruments -
completed works of the artist are put here. On an imposing table lies a
visitor's book with inscriptions of guests visiting the Chetmowskis' house. FAMILY Jozef Chetmowski was born on 26th February 1934
in Brusy. He was the youngest child of five siblings. He had two brothers and
two sisters. When he grew up, he stayed at his family home and took up farming. In 1941 he started learning in a local, German
primary school. After the termination of the II World War he continued learning
in a Polish school. Having completed a primary school he began working as a
physical worker in railways and in 1948 he went to work in Silesia. After half a
year he came back and was employed again in railways. He was taken to the army
and afterwards he tried several jobs. He worked in a road company, in a cinema
in Brusy, in the "Las" (Forest) Company and finally, he came back
again to the railways. In the late seventies, he began running the farm
inherited from his parents. At present, he deals only with his artistic
creativity. With his wife, Jadwiga, whom he married in 1959,
he has two daughters: one of them, Ewa, lives in Brusy with her family, the
other, Jolanta, with her husband of Kurdish origin, in Sweden. Mr. And Mrs.
Chetmowski have seven grandchildren. The farm is run now by his daughter and
son-in-Iaw. A SMALL HOMELAND Jozef Chetmowski is a Kashube. He married a
Kashube, too. The Chetmowski family has always lived here. His surname derives
maybe from the name of a village situated near Brusy, called Chetmy. His
identity is determined by a few basic elements: Kashubian language used by the
artist every day, inherited family traditions, residing in that part of
Kashubian region for a long time and religion. Religion plays a special role in
determining the artist's identity. It can be noticed in lots of his canvas
paintings. The landscapes described in "The Bible" are identified with
his closest neighbourhood. Brusy, with its church towers and characteristic
buildings, is often presented as a projection of Jerusalem. Jozef Chetmowski has a deep awareness of
existence in his place of living which directs him in his artistic way and
inspires to philosophical thinking. Feeling rooted in his ancestors' land is a
necessity to memorize, preserve that what passes away, thus a need to collect
things and arrange a museum, put down thoughts and reflections of the sense of
life and record legends and stories heard from other people. TALENT Jozef Chetmowski is a prolific artist. The amount
of sculptures, paintings on canvas and glass, musical instruments of his own
idea, custom requisites, Christ-child's cribs and toys made by him can be
counted in hundreds, if not in thousands, of pieces. The sculptures of Jozef Chetmowski are in
majority painted with colourful paints of intensive colours. One of the most
characteristic and distinctive features of sculpture creativity of Jozef
Chetmowski, is placing on his sculptures maxims being an indispensable
completion of form. The text - comment on a sculpture is to specify the artistic
expression and to complete the image verbally, it shows a direction of
interpretation. Paintings on canvas and glass are supplemented by maxims, too.
His paintings are mostly connected with philosophical - astronomical and
religious themes, inspired mainly by Saint John's Apocalypse, but they also
concern subjects relating to work and habits of Kashubes. Many canvas paintings
with diagrams, digits, schemes resembl" philosophical treatises - they are
not only idyllic pictures, but works that make visitors think and consider ideas
comprised in them. The greatest painting achievement of Jozef
Chetmowski is a picture "The Apocalypse Panorama" of the total length
exceeding 55 metres. The work is a projection of St. John's Apocalypse in visual
language. It was painted in the years 1992 - 1994. For the first time it was
shown in public in Stadtlohn, Germany, in May 1994. The first Polish
presentation took place in July 1994 in Wdzydze Kiszewskie. Now it is a part of
the collection of the Western - Kashubian Museum in Bytow. The Apocalypse Panorama consists of sequential
scenes numbered identically as poems of St. John's Apocalypse in the Bible.
Thanks to a uniform background used along the whole picture, showing earth and
sky with a horizon line, a spectator has an impression of the continuity of
narration. The author, who is familiar CURIOSITY ABOUT THE WORLD An artist is motivated to make his creations by
interest in the world around him. For Jozef Chetmowski there is no single domain
of life which could not be an object for consideration, reflection or creation -
constructional, artistic or that put down on paper, philosophical. Curiosity
about the world is not only to accept information, but also to interpret it, to
find inspiration in it, to observe and creatively use things seen, read or
heard. The artist travels quite eagerly. He went to
Sweden several times, he was in Germany, Belgium, Austria, Czech and Slovenia.
Every travel, near or far, results in work, creative expression. A stay in
Sweden was an inspiration to write down reflections referring to mysteries of
the universe, entitled "The Mysteries of the World of Worlds".
From Slovenia, the artist brought an idea to decorate bee-hives with
painted rural scenes. Travels around Europe and in-born predispositions make
Jozef Chetmowski learn foreign languages. On many sculptures and canvas
paintings one can see inscriptions in different languages. Several years ago
Chetmowski tried to develop a Polish - Kurdish dictionary. His knowledge of
German enables him to read philosophical works of Kant and Goethe in original. He is also interested in current social and
political events. He has never been indifferent to them. When a martial law was
declared in Poland in 1981 and the "Solidarity" Trade Union was
rendered illegal, he made a sequence of sculptures commenting on those events.
After a breakdown of the nuclear reactor in Czernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, the
artist made a sculpture being his creative reply to the catastrophe. Also,
when in the nineties a cruel war was waged in Yugoslavia, he made a sculpture
entitled "Kosovo" and after the war in Kuwait and Iraq in 1991 he
painted a canvas picture under the title" War in the Persian Gulf".
So, similarly, when the towers of the WTC were destroyed in New York by
terrorists in 2001, Jozef Chetmowski made a few works devoted to that tragedy
and created two theme-connected paintings and on one of them a central element
are burning towers of WTC.
A MYSTERY Jozef Chetmowski believes that there is no
scientific theory or accepted view which is really completed. Whatever we know
about the world - comprises a certain mystery. A mystery is a key-word which
shows if a given problem is worth our interest. The existence of mysteries is
also a reason for which it is worth living and creating, this is a driving power
for creativity. Chetmowski's interest in inexplicable worlds has been developed
by him in his literary piece of work entitled" The Mysteries of the World
of Worlds" (i. e. of universe). This is a series of ideas philosophical and
technical, containing 28 chapters in which the author presents his own original
views. " The Mysteries" are accompanied by 31 drawings, called by the
author "engravings", illustrating particular chapters. This piece of
work is, as usual with Jozef Chetmowski, a combination of word and image. His
reasoning is extended, supported by numerous numbers, data and calculations. The
work is full of inward shortenings, sudden changes of subject. Additionally,
quite often the same issue is developed and modified in different parts of the
text which makes the reception of the author's views difficult. The most spectacular example of a mystery
considered by the author, is polemics with the theory of Nicolas Copernicus.
Chetmowski does not question the rightness of the theory of the XVI- century
astronomer, he only challenges some of his statements, e. g. what refers to a
size of some of the planets in the Solar System. He believes that Copernicus
left certain gaps in his theory deliberately, to enable future scientists to
make them up. His discussion with Copernicus has been developed in his two-part
picture entitled "The Completion of Copernicus Theory". INVENTIONS AND EXPERIMENTS Attempts to solve mysteries result not only in Jozef Chetmowski's theoretical reflections, but also in concrete, technical constructions, experiments and new solutions concerning many fields of life. A "machine for catching the elements" was a certain introduction to work started several years before, devoted to Jozef Chetmowski has also been experimenting with
a painting technique. He has his own recipes of preparing painting underlay,
mixing of paints and other components, which he guards carefully, as - what he
says - there is a mystery in that, too. A MAN ON THE EARTH For Jozef Chetmowski nature is a source of all
the truth and knowledge about the world. Nature, identified with God by him,
delivers true, undeniable information, it is infallible. Jozef Chetmowski,
though fascinated with science, believes, that it pushed a man away from nature
and from learning the truth. The artist notices many discrepancies between some
conclusions that result from observations of nature and scientific knowledge
about it, which he described in his "Mysteries of the World of
Worlds". He maintains that nature gives simpler answers to almost all
questions. The author's courage is fascinating - knowing certain scientific
truths he is not afraid to question them. He is not afraid, either, to challenge
problems apparently clear, that seem to be completed, closed. The areas of
ignorance, carried by everyman are filled by Chetmowski with interpretations
deriving directly from mental heritage of folk culture. The artist interprets
various facts, connecting them with one another and forming his own picture of
the world. He announces a certain truth, because only in that way he can share
his ideas with others, but, at the same time, he does not teach, he does not try
to impose anything upon others. In spite of the fact that this truth is
fragmentary, often "strange" and difficult for everyone of us, but
painfully sincere. And maybe indispensable for us? Jozef Chehnowski does not fear to ask a question:
why does God. the most perfect creature. need such an imperfect man? Reprinted from an exhibition brochure.
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