Piotr Łucjan’s Book

Abstract

The text is an essay-review of My Second Spring or, Belated Philological Studies with Professor Bruno Schulz [Moja Druga wiosna, czyli spóźnione studia filologiczne u profesora Brunona Schulza], a book by Piotr Łucjan, a Lublin-based painter. Richly illustrated, it is a personal record of his spiritual and intellectual dialog with Schulz, not an academic study but a kind of the artist’s notebook. It includes an alphabetical lexicon of concepts, figures, and motifs drawn from Schulz’s fiction and their interpretations. Besides, Łucjan developed a “topography of terms” – a map of motifs which helps to identify them in particular stories. His interpretations are sometimes brilliant but also abstruse, controversial and too imaginary. Łucjan combines encyclopedic knowledge with personal speculations, at times loosely related to Schulz’s texts. However, Moja druga wiosna proves genuine passion as a record of an encounter of two artists, Schulz and Łucjan, connected by an internal drive to create, deep reflection, and individual independence.