Abstract
We might call them "unofficial", "dissident", "alternative" or "nonconformist", but the fact remains that all these artists wanted to create works of art outside the official system. During the communist period in Poland, this meant the rejection of the regulation of official art, or socialist realism, and the loyalty to artistic freedom and right to self-definition. From the late forties to the late eighties, artists tried to find a path along the ideological order of the regime. We will notice that political changes go hand in hand with changes in Polish art. The early fifties had the obligation of socialist realism and the political thaw following the death of Stalin gave a new face to Polish paintings. In the eighties, the creation of Solidarity and the Martial Law gave another direction to art. I will underline the place of fine arts among political and social change throughout the period between the implementation of the socialist system in 1949 and its collapse in 1989. Art can be a power but is often an elitist power. In the beginning, it was a very specific sphere of artists that refused socialist rules focusing on artistic matters, and which had little concern for political matters. But in the eighties, after a search for the public role in the communist society, artists and intellectuals supported the movement of society.
