The exhibition "FIVE", presented at the Szydłowski Gallery during the 13th edition of Warsaw Gallery Weekend, became a platform for dialogue between two fascinating artists: Uwe Wittwer and Sławomir Elsner. The inspiration for this latest encounter between the painters was “A Short Film About Killing” (Decalogue V) by Krzysztof Kieślowski, as well as the pervasive news of wars and humanitarian crises. Their shared exploration of themes such as death, violence, and collective memory extended far beyond aesthetic boundaries, delving into ethical reflections on the human condition.
The works included in the exhibition revisited the Renaissance debate between disegno and colorito, which revolved around the primacy of drawing or color in art. This Italian paragone, especially vibrant in the discussions between the Florentine and Venetian schools, was not merely a technical dispute but a deeper debate about the nature of art—whether it was intellectual (disegno) or sensory (colorito).
Elsner, embodying an approach rooted in disegno, bases his work on the precision of drawing and the clarity of compositional structure. His creations, rendered with colored pencils, reveal an almost surgical accuracy in depicting details. In the spirit of Florentine masters, Elsner emphasizes the value of drawing as the foundation of artistic creation, suggesting that clear form and line are essential not only aesthetically but also conceptually. His works, often reinterpreting the creations of old masters, resemble memory maps—each pencil stroke representing an act that is both artistic and historical, restoring iconographic themes emblematic of European culture.
Conversely, Wittwer, more closely aligned with the Venetian ideals of colorito, delves into the emotional and atmospheric potential of color. His paintings, rich in blurred patches and subtle gradients, evoke the techniques of colorist masters such as Giorgione and Titian. Wittwer intentionally eschews precise contours, allowing color to freely shape space and atmosphere. The softened forms and ambiguous outlines in his works suggest the ephemerality of memory and the uncertainty of human perception—color, much like human recollections, becomes an intuitive medium, susceptible to the forces of emotion.
Recontextualizing one of the most significant aesthetic discourses in art history leads to a unique compromise. While Elsner predominantly employs geometrically guided lines, his figurative compositions only fully take shape from a distance, where they resolve into planes of colorful patches under the viewer’s perception. The coexistence of both artistic approaches in the exhibition creates not only a visual contrast but also a crucial theoretical juxtaposition. The works of Elsner and Wittwer do not exist in isolation; they engage in dialogue, emphasizing the complementarity of both techniques. Elsner constructs narratives through detail and the discipline of drawing, while Wittwer blurs the boundaries between form and background, directing the viewer's focus to the emotional power of color.
The artists also find common ground in the physical properties of their chosen media. Despite the historical competition between drawing and painting in artistic discourse, watercolor, a water-based paint used by Wittwer, shares many characteristics with colored pencil, Elsner's medium.
Both tools demand exceptional, almost masterful precision from the artist. When watercolor penetrates the paper’s fibers, the process becomes irreversible. Unlike oil paint, where compositions can be easily modified with layered glazes, water-soluble binders do not allow such flexibility. Similarly, drawing reflects the artist's technical skill. Like watercolor, pencil drawing relies on precise pressure control, directly affecting the intensity and texture of the lines. In both watercolor and pencil drawing, the artist's gesture becomes visible—every variation in pressure creates subtle differences in tone and texture, capturing delicate nuances of light and shadow. The ability to achieve smooth transitions between tones in watercolor, where pigments disperse in water, has parallels in pencil drawing, where similar effects are achieved through controlled layering of material on paper. Both techniques enable the creation of spatial depth while preserving a lightness of composition in which every detail holds its significance. In watercolor, water serves as both a boundary and a space for experimentation with spontaneity. In pencil drawing, especially in the hatching technique (crossing lines), the artist achieves similar effects of subtle transitions that, with the right arrangement of lines, can create an illusion of volume. In both cases, mastery of the medium is crucial, as both pencil and watercolor can quickly lose their nuanced qualities in inexperienced hands.
Watercolor and pencil drawing share a pronounced sense of ephemerality, making these media particularly sensitive to changing working conditions and diverse contexts of reception. Watercolor, with water as its key medium, is characterized by natural variability and transience—colors can flow into fluid transitions, blurring the boundaries of forms and lending compositions an intriguing fleetingness. Its transparency allows for capturing atmospheric effects and mood in landscapes. Similarly, drawing, though materially more durable, retains an ephemeral quality through the delicacy of its lines and their potential partial erasure. This creates an impression of impermanence, expressed through the artist’s subtle gestures. Both media serve as means to capture fleeting impressions imbued with emotional resonance, where the fragility of gesture and the variability of light become as significant as the final form of the artwork.
The “FIVE” exhibition at the Szydłowski Gallery, showcasing the works of Uwe Wittwer and Sławomir Elsner, became a foundation for exploring the relationship between painting and drawing. Both artists transcended traditional, dichotomous boundaries of the paragone, merging technical mastery with emotional sensitivity. As a result, the works on display achieved equality not only in form but also in concept.