Narrow-gauge Railway (In the Mountains) 1963

Jerzy Nowosielski made this painting, *Narrow-gauge Railway (In the Mountains)* with oil on canvas. In it, simplified forms suggest a landscape, with a railway wrapping around a large body of water. What does it mean to represent a landscape in this way? It would be easy to say that it is simply ‘abstract’ but, in fact, the image creates meaning through its cultural and historical associations. The painting was likely made in Poland during the second half of the 20th century, a period when the country was under communist rule. Nowosielski's choice of subject matter is quite telling because railways were a symbol of industrial progress and modernisation. The railways, in the Soviet Bloc, were a tool of social and economic planning, however, Nowosielski reduces it to a diagrammatic sketch. Is this a commentary on the reality of Poland’s progress? Is it self-consciously progressive, or even a critique of the institutions of state power? These are the questions historians try to answer using research resources to understand art within its social and institutional context.