The Nearness of Miniatures
The miniature is a ruse – it relieves some of the responsibility, makes the composition of the painting easier, but in return, it offers intimacy.
It works both ways – it shortens the distance, since it is like a whisper, and it diminishes responsibility, since it’s so very, very small...
Of course, the painted who creates miniatures is still careful and follows all the rules of painting, because they are creating “serious” paintings, but this altered – diminished – scale makes the task perhaps a little easier.
The miniature does not absolve one of responsibility. It does not absolve one from the quality of execution, from psychological plausibility. Yes, all this is agreed, but at the same time it has to be said: it frees one from the monumentality of the composition. Painting small formats is different. There are different distances, different spaces to cover. You think you know everything, but the miniature proportions are appealing.
Everything sounds different – every painterly gesture, every impasto laid down, every variation of colour, every last bit of paint on a brush. After all, we look differently at a painting we can hold in our hands, and differently at a composition that requires us to step back, to get some distance, to get the right perspective. Katarzyna Karpowicz knows perfectly well these painterly rules that govern painting, and she uses them masterfully, creating images in all painting scales – from miniatures to polyptychs consisting of many parts, through the most popular medium sizes.
At the same time, it may happen that one day, a thought comes: today I’m going to make a miniature. I’ve had enough of distance, enough stepping back from the easel; I want to hold the picture I’m about to paint in my hands. I want to touch it, to feel it in the palm of my hand. All that remains is to make the story fit. These close shots must be shortened, accessible, intimate. The cannot and should not maintain a distance. Distance does not serve miniatures. The oldest and most perfect ones are best served by a magnifying glass.
Karpowicz’s miniatures are not so small, but at the same time they change the scale of our expectations – one has to lean down over them, feel the closeness. One does not paint miniatures to be far away. That is an antithesis. The miniature brings one closer, reveals, exposes, shortens, brings intimacy.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, portrait miniatures were often worn around the neck, as a talisman, a declaration of love, or a spell to be as close as possible to one’s beloved, for what could be more intimate, close, tangible, and perhaps even tangible. This is how it was meant to be! Miniatures were usually painted on ivory, because it was the most perfect substrate possible, so in some way, they were also a real treasure – and actually doubly so. They were sealed. They were framed in gold. Sometimes they also contained a lock of a loved one’s hair, or some other priceless scrap of reality. Then they truly became talismans, declarations of love, expressions of the emotionality and sentimentality of the time. These portraits carried the greatest amount of familiarity, privacy, and, inevitably, intimacy and closeness. Yes, intimacy – this is probably the most important keyword to communing with miniatures, as it contains their charm and power of influence.
The subjects of the newest paintings are children. At the same time, the exhibition title is not overly radiant and childlike; rather, it is poetically cautionary: “Sometimes you’re alive, sometimes you’re not.” It is not my intention to interpret Katarzyna Karpowicz’s paintings, but what emanates from there is melancholy. Childhood is not always a happy time, although it is wonderful when it pretends to be so. The painter confessed long ago that she does not want to grow up, and she has consistently pursued that agenda. It is clear that she feels perfectly at home in the world of the young, although not the youngest. She tells stories about them and for them.
