Rymanów-Zdrój as Seen by Stanisław Wyspiański in the Summers of 1901 and 1903

Abstract

Rymanów-Zdrój as Seen by Stanisław Wyspiański in the Summers of 1901 and 1903

The origins of the Rymanów health resort date back to 16 August 1876, when Count Stanisław Potocki – the owner of the local estate – accidentally discovered mineral springs in the valley of the Taba stream. Chemical analyses of these springs, carried out on several occasions, confirmed unequivocally that the waters of Rymanów were very similar in composition to those that had been exploited for a quarter of a century in Iwonicz-Zdrój; they therefore provided an excellent basis for establishing a twin health resort south of the town of Rymanów. Only five years later, the Potocki family’s persistent efforts were rewarded with a formal licence from the Austro-Hungarian Governor’s Office in Lviv, authorising the establishment and operation of the Rymanów Health Resort. From the very beginning of its existence, patients coming to Rymanów could bathe in the soon-to-be-built Baths, and three different mineral waters – named Tytus, Celestyna and Klaudia – were used for drinking, as well as for the production of iodine-bromine salts.

In the following years, the hitherto empty valley of the Taba River, at the mouth of Czarny Potok, began to be filled with wooden villas for patients and the necessary public buildings for the seasonal operation of the health resort. Another successful coincidence was the completion in 1884 of the Stróże-Zagórz railway line, running north from Rymanów, whose station of the same name made it extremely easy to reach Zdrój, even from very distant Galician towns. The number of visitors, growing year by year, at the turn of the 20^th century exceeded 2,300 people treated by the Rymanów waters during the bathing season, which lasted from May to September.

In July 1901, doctors in Kraków recommended Stanisław Wyspiański a health resort treatment with iodine-bromine waters in Rymanów-Zdrój. With his entire family – his pregnant wife and three children – the Artist arrived by train from Kraków to the Rymanów station. Then, by horse-drawn carriage, he went to a rented flat in a guest house belonging to Mikołaj Śliwka in the northern part of Deszno, a village bordering the health resort from the south. The Wyspiańskis stayed there for over a month, until 24 August 1901.

But in 1903, the Artist’s health required further treatment. The doctors referred Wyspiański once again to Rymanów, where he arrived alone this time and stayed at the Leliwa Villa, in the very centre of the health resort. His health resort stay in 1903, however, was completely different from that of two years earlier. The Artist was plagued by loneliness, an acute sense of boredom caused by the doctor’s prohibition on doing anything except therapeutic treatments, a lingering awareness of the inevitability of fate in the face of the progression of an incurable illness, apathy and resignation.