Showcasing the extraordinary achievements of the proponents of Polish modernism from the 1890s to 1918, this ground-breaking book brings together pioneering research with beautiful imagery. Mloda Polska, or Young Poland, embraced the integration of fine and applied arts, motivated by a desire to establish a distinctive national style at a time of political uncertainty. Patriotic values were expressed through a diverse visual language that was fuelled by national identity, but also looked beyond Poland to Western Europe and the influences of Impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, while also displaying parallels with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Young Poland's painting has been discussed within an international arena, but its decorative arts and architecture has yet to enjoy broad exposure. Here, for the first time, the considerable achievements of the movement's applied artists will be discussed, both from a national and international perspective. Highlighting Young Poland's integration of fine and decorative arts, the movement's ideological, stylistic and formal commonalities with British Arts and Crafts, and the vision of Ruskin and Morris, will be drawn out to provide fascinating insights for Western and Eastern audiences alike.

"Cavanaugh's scholarship is distinguished by several qualities: detailed knowledge, a rare comparative awareness of adjacent disciplines, and of course, a substantial, synthetic knowledge of modern artistic developments in Western Europe and the U.S. Out Looking In will be relevant to a large and varied public."--John E. Bowlt, author of Forbidden Art: Soviet Nonconformist Art, 1956-1988 "This is an essential book for scholars of modernism who are eager, in the wake of post-structuralist and post-modernist reevaluations of the construction of modernism's history, to broaden discussions beyond a narrow French orientation. It will serve as an important stimulus for rethinking European art in general in this period."--Linda Dalrymple Henderson, University of Texas, Austin "Clearly written and well organized, [Out Looking In] will be the indispensable reference work in English on early modern Polish art. Cavanuagh's treatment, based on solid research and critical insight, is illuminating."--Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, Professor of Art, Queen's University "The visual richness and comprehensiveness of Out Looking In will make it a primary resource in the West for images of early modern Polish art as well as arguing for the centrality of Polish art to the discussion of European modernism. This is revisionism at its most insightful."--Wendy Salmond, author of Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia "This book goes a long way in correcting our geographically narrow understanding of European modernism. While arguing for Poland's place in the annals of artistic modernism, Cavanaugh elegantly manoeuvers between the sensitive issues determining national artistic identity and the international context of this debate."--Myroslava M. Mudrak, Ohio State University "This is one of the most important critical analyses of turn-of-the-century Polish art. Out Looking In will inspire a broad response from a wide international cricle of historians of art, literature, and artistic culture."--Wieslaw Juszczak, Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters and Art History Department, University of Warsaw

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.