The relation between art and the media is of a great significance today. This is actually a relation of a complicated character. The media not only comment on an artistic image, they can also create it, and sometimes they even seem to influence the creation of artistic values. Obviously, this influence is the consequence of technological development and of the significant role of the electronic media, and that is why the relation of the media and culture became so close as late as the 20th century.

Before, the only medium that accompanied art was the press, whose development dates back to the 19th century. At the beginning, the reproductions of works of art were placed and artistic events commented on in papers of a general character. Later, more and more specialized magazines dealing with culture appeared. Owing to them the market of art criticism, earlier so unprofessional, was created.

This was very well visible in Poland in the second half of the 19th century, when Stanis³aw Witkiewicz started to write. His book „Art and Criticism at Home” shows professional approach of the author, particularly when it comes to formal analysis. While the majority of Polish critics of those times dealt with painterly presentations and the dirty feet of a peasant woman in Che³moñski’s „Indian Summer” aroused indignation, Witkiewicz, while writing about art, focused on purely artistic values. Thus, art began to be understood by a wider audience, and not only by those who dealt with it directly. Artists understood very quickly that the media can either help an artistic career or make it difficult. Having realised their power, they started to use it consciously. 

The avant-garde artists, who set up art magazines to promote new ideas, were very well aware of that. They knew that the appearance in a printed medium will enable them to extend the ideas of modernity and to instil them in the society much faster. Some however, like Salvador Dali, noticed that only the media which have a wide range of influence bring quick fame and big money. But they are not interested in artistic contents – they write only about controversial art and artists. And so it is then that scandal and provocation became one of the most willingly used strategies to make a career quickly and easily.

And here, I think, we touch on the most important issue related to the relationship between the media and art. Art, being exclusive, is not an easy topic for the media as it compels a deeper reflection, requires attention, cannot be quickly „consumed”. And therefore there are not many people ready for such a challenge. There are two solutions then – either to make the message simpler so that it gets through to as many people as possible or to consciously limit  the range of the media influence. The first strategy is used, for example, by the Polish national dailies, where readers can find reviews of exhibitions and artistic activities. The second one is applied by specialized magazines and thematic television channels. It is most difficult to find the golden mean that would allow to get through to the possibly largest audience without trivializing the significance of the work of art. This is also connected with the problem of commercialisation, essential in the context of the media. It would be important to define to what extent the media have to present commercially successful activities, and to what extent they are responsible for featuring alternative activities.

Whether we present a fashionable art or an alternative one, what is really important for the audience is to understand it – and this depends on the language used to describe it. The language can be bombastic, artificially scientific and therefore boring, with which it is difficult to get through to the reader, the listener, the spectator. It can be dynamic, comprehensible, and at the same time able to express the speaker’s opinion supported by arguments concerning the substance. It is difficult to be able to use such a language as journalists very often have too little knowledge, and specialists use a language which is too esoteric. The bombastic type – as I defined it - was once the basic language to express one’s opinions in cultural magazines. So it was in the era of „Pegasus”, formerly the only cultural magazine. TVP Kultura still seems to follow this path although this formula no longer fits in with the current situation. Most certainly, gossipy programmes on commercial televisions cannot be the alternative. An interesting offer among programmes that can be defined as cultural is „£ossskot” („Clattter”). We can find sincere statements there and they don’t fear  controversial, subjective, but truly intimate opinions. The opinions can be right or wrong, but they don’t lock art in an ivory tower, and they don’t close the doors to a discourse either. Views presented in the programme are neither personal nor political, they focus mainly on the artistic aspect. And what’s most important – they are based on solid arguments.

Problems similar to those that appear in the press and on television, are also encountered on the virtual medium – the Internet. Also here it is most important to balance the proportions between solemnity and the colloquial language. Everything depends on who we want to communicate with – with only a narrow group of specialists or are we trying to get through to a wider audience. It seems that in Poland nowadays this second option is much more necessary. Educating young generation is more prospective than the specialists’ discourse.

In today’s divided and atomised world we need various points of view and various languages to express them. If only they can find those who understand and accept them, everything will be all right. The most important thing, I guess, is that the media, particularly the public ones, remember about this disliked, but important notion – the mission. We shouldn’t forget that we exist as a society in so far as we remember and talk about our culture.