Sztuka i Kultura

Gotycka rzeźba Ukrzyżowanego Chrystusa ze Starogardu Gdańskiego

2021-12-27T16:41:15+01:00

The sculpture of Crucified Christ (about 2 metres high) was found by Michał Walicki in 1933 in a church in Starogard Gdański. The founder recognized it as an ‘outstanding’ artwork, dating back to the beginning of 14th century or ca. 1320, connecting archaic traits of Romanesque art (type of head, positioning of the body) with the features of Gothic crucifixes. That complex character of the artwork impeded its more precise recognition (workshop, dating). That is certainly why, in spite of its high rank, the crucifix did not come to be a popular research subject. Later references of art historians are nothing but brief mentions (except a modest monograph by Anita Cylkowska), reiterating, complementing or somewhat modifying the theses put forward by Walicki (A. Cylkowska, for instance, shifted the dating to ca. 1350–1370). It was only Karl-Heinz Clasen who came forth with a wholly different hypothesis – he linked the title crucifix with the so-called Prussian Madonnas on a Lion circle (among others he pointed to the Madonna of Lubieszewo as a stylistic kin) and dated it to the last quarter of 14th century. It is worth returning to that forgotten thesis, for it seems well founded. The almost stiffly straightened positioning of the body is not an archaic, Romanesque trait; this kind of crucifixes can be found in the second half of 14th century, especially in painting (Crucifixion, Emaus monastery in Prague, ca. 1360, Crucifixion, a quarter of the Grudziądz altar, the end of 14th century, a wall painting in a Church of the Minorities in Stein in Austria, ca. 1350). Some of the examples (Stein) are typologically very close to the Stargard piece (leg positioning, the layout of loincloths). Similarly, as regards the details of sculpting work: the way the head, the hair and the loincloths were made. Here one could indicate more specific artistic inspirations. The shape of the head, the expressive moulding of the face (prominent nose, hard line of the lips), the hair arranged in wide, ‘ribbon-like’ strands, bear numerous resemblances to the leading artworks of the Madonnas of a Lion circle, both from Silesia (the Apostles of Wrocław, the altar figures of Bąkowo), as well as the Prussian ones (Apostles’ heads from the altar of Kraplewo near Ostroda, that of the Christ from the Triumph of Mary group from Lalkowy near Gdańsk, the undefined apostle from the church in Dzierzgoń, or the Sorrowful Mary from the altar of Virmo in Finland – imported from Prussia, etc.). Also the ways in which loincloths of the Crucified were realized (it was later shortened) displays convergencies with the sculptures of the circle: it is a fine, flimsy fabric forming tiny ripples, locally ‘sticking’ to the body making it more explicit. One can notice analogies in the way the fabric is arranged in the Madonna of Lubieszewo (on her hip and leg), in the figure of St. Peter of Kraplewo (hanging coattail motif ) and in others. In view of those similarities, the crucifix of Starogard Gdański should be dated the way Clasen did – to the fourth quarter or the end of 14th century. The mentioned analogies make Clasen’s thesis plausible, while at the same time – in view of the fact that it would be the only preserved monumental crucifix linked to that artistic circle in Prussia – they enliven the discussion on the scale and the character of the phenomenon which was the so-called Madonnas on a Lion circle.

Królowa Saby przed Salomonem – nieznane malowidło Stephana Kesslera w Muzeum Narodowym w Warszawie

2021-12-27T16:51:58+01:00

Despite being included in the Museum’s collection as early as 1946, the painting has no literature and is being displayed in a corridor of the administrative part of the institution, largely hidden from the public eye. The picture, which can be easily identified by subject, was brought from Silesia and could well originate from the former collection of the Dukes von Hochberg und zu Pless in Hochberg (Książ) castle in that province. This supposition is based on the composition’s resemblance in facial features, architectural detail and overall painterly execution, somewhat coarse, to a set of four pictures, illustrating the Evangelical parable of Prodigal Son, and simultaneously constituting allegories of The Four Seasons, once preserved in that residence. The ensemble, now owned by the National Museum in Wrocław, was signed in 1674 by Stephan Kessler, a painter born in Donauworth in Bavaria and active in Brixen (Bressanone), South Tirol, whose father came from Silesia. The Queen of Sheba, which can be dated to 1660–1670, resembles the Wrocław and many other paintings by Kessler also in large size, in tackling – repeatedly – Biblical and other historical or allegorical themes, and in basing the composition on prints from various periods and milieus, very often made after Rubens, however. In this case, graphic works by Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert, Matthaus Merian the Elder, and Paulus Pontius seem to have been used. Apart from discussing the main topic, the author reports on two further unpublished pictures by Kessler – a Judith and Holofernes, a partly workshop piece on the Paris art market in 1993, and Moses, Israelites and the Pharaoh’s army drowning in the Red Sea, a good quality work in private possession in Poland.

Wyposażenie pojezuickiego kościoła św. Franciszka Ksawerego w Grudziądzu jako przykład maniery chinoiserie

2021-12-27T17:00:36+01:00

The equipment of St. Franciszek Ksawery church in Grudziądz determines the unique character of that church in Poland. It presents rich regent style with numerous elements of the decoration which was fashionable especially in the beginning of 18th century and imitated the art of China, namely chinoiserie.

Chinoiserie decorations, popular in Polish secular art, can also be found in sacral interiors. Initially, they made their way into churches as gifts of wealthy founders, however, in the case of Jesuit churches they became a conscious concept. Chinoiserie in the interiors of Jesuit churches constituted not only the reflection of their missionary activity but also a conclusion to multiple research and writings on China and Japan as well as other Asian countries. It brought along a completely new iconography and ideology, which we can find in such large numbers in the Grudziądz church.

We can notice it starting from the main altar, where on particular items there are decorations realized in the imitation of black lacquer, depicting exotic landscapes full of oriental animals and plants (parrots and palms). Black lacquer can also be found in the decoration of the pulpit. There, among exotic landscapes there are individual apostles as well as saints, and similarly as in the confessionals, the attributes of individual saints were entwined into chinoiserie decorations. The quintessence of the employment of Chinese varnish remains in the music choir, whose three panneaus depict the scenes of the Jesuits’ missionary road in Asia among exotic plants. Even the side altars, although not embellished with black lacquer, refer to the program, in particular the south altar devoted to St. Ignacy Loyola in the surrounding of four continents.

The employment of chinoiserie in church decoration had never been used in such a scale in a sacral building – an exception to which can be the already non-existent convent church in Międzyrzecze (its equipment partially preserved in Wyszanów), where the same artists might have worked. In some Polish churches there are single pieces decorated in this way, sometimes a few, like in Studzian. The subject matter of chinoiserie in Polish sacral art still largely remains insufficiently examined and described. Therefore, there is hope for further discoveries in the area.

Z dziejów budowy pałacu Przebendowskich w Warszawie

2021-12-27T17:17:38+01:00

The Grand Treasurer of the Crown Jan Jerzy Przebendowski (1639–1729), henchman of August II at that time holding one of the most important and lucrative central offices, has been of interest to the historians for many years. Also his two palatial homes – in Lezienko near Gdańsk and in Warsaw in Bielańska street – have been of interest among researchers. A sumptuous palace in Bielańska street – one of the leading examples of the capital city’s palace architecture of the late Baroque – became, among other mentions, the subject matter of Anna Saratowicz’s monograph. That multi-level building, representing the type of a detached mansion with single-axis bedchambers in the corners of its four-sided body was characterized by two stout two-floor solid blocks connected to each other and built into the body on its main axis, among others the front oval shape protruding into the honorary courtyard – perhaps the most characteristic motif of the Warsaw mansion of the Grand Treasurer. So far, neither the circumstances of its foundation nor the designer or the contractor have been revealed, nothing is known of the building process or its cost. New light has been shed on building of the Warsaw palace by the so far unknown archive items preserved in the National Historic Archive of Belarus in Minsk and in the Archiwum Głowne Akt Dawnych (Central Archive of Historical Records) in Warsaw. The information from the above mentioned sources is in fact scarse, very fragmentary and significantly far from completeness, it does, however, enable a certain specification of the building process of the Warsaw palace of the Treasurer. The beginnings of its erection, certainly a few seasons long, can be dated to ca. 1720 or even earlier – at the end of the first decade of 18th century. However, the earliest archive information dates back to as late as 1724 and refers to the building of the picket fence closing the residence off from the side of the garden. In the following year 1725 side outbuildings were erected. The erection of the outbuildings and the fence constituted the final stage of the main building works. The works on the body of the palace – woodworking, roofing, stonemasonry, tinsmithy, glassworking and locksmithy, were noted down in the years 1725–1726, about the earlier basic bricklaying works – certainly lasting many seasons – there is no record at all. There is, however, some truly sensational information brought about by the contract for decorative moulding works signed in August 1727 by Jan Jerzy Przebendowski with famous Warsaw artists, the moulding artist Pietro Innocente Comparetti and the sculptor Johann George Plersch. Their task was to fill the triangular spaces above 27 windows of the first floor and to add mouldings to both facades – front and on the side of the garden. The original moulding ornamentation must have been removed during the 19th-century renovation so, unfortunately, we are not familiar with its appearance. Except for providing new findings in reference to the building history of the Warsaw home of the Przebendowski family, while also enriching the factual knowledge by the data from the second half of the 1720s and rectifying some of the presently existing opinion, the present article is clearly far from exhausting the issue of the erection of the palace in Bielańska street. It can be suspected that the National Historic Archive of Belarus in Minsk, in its Radziwiłł fond, preserves more so far unrecognized archive items connected to the Przebendowski family and their Warsaw mansion.

Obrazy Adoracja Świętej Trójcy przez śś. Jana de Matha i Feliksa de Valois oraz Św. Juda Tadeusz – zapomniane dzieła Tadeusza Kuntzego

2021-12-27T17:26:27+01:00

In 1758, Tadeusz Kuntze made two paintings for the side altars of the newly built Church of the Discalced Friars of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of the Captives in Cracow. The canvas of St. Jude Thaddeus remains in situ, while the representation of Adoration of the Holy Trinity by St. John de Matha and St. Felix de Valois was removed before 1850 and is currently in the Trinitarian monastery in Cracow-Płaszow. These works, as well as the Trinitarian temple, were created on the initiative of Fr Stanislaus Oborski, the most eminent member of the Polish-Lithuanian Province of the Order, in 1753–1759 holding the title of Minister General, residing in Rome. It seems certain that Fr Oborski, as a connoisseur of art, came into contact with Tadeusz Kuntze in the Eternal City, and then, taking advantage of his presence in Cracow in the years 1756/1757–1759, commissioned him to make the aforementioned canvases. This conclusion is prompted by their stylistic and formal affinity with the artist’s artwork and the information given by Edward Rastawiecki about two paintings by Kuntze, preserved in the former Trinitarian church in the middle of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the poor condition of both works does not allow to fully appreciate their original beauty.

Zawadzki i Kamsetzer – dowód przyjaźni i współpracy architektów. Rozważania o warszawskich pałacach Tyszkiewiczów i Raczyńskich

2021-12-27T17:35:52+01:00

It is greatly inadequate in to-date research in Polish architecture of the Enlightenment period to almost completely lack reflection on the issue of the interrelation of its actual creators, especially those belonging to such an active artistic environment as Warsaw. The determinants shaping those ralations – like within every social-professional group – turn out to be diverse. It is not only the character-related issues of each of its members. It may be shaped by various communities: the national one and its derivative – linguistic, often also religious, attitudes resulting from a subjective sense of one’s own status or from holding a particular office, dependecies related to the previous cooperation, such as in the master-disciple or superior-subordinate relations. All those factors could be at work there, enhanced by the pressure of incessant competition within a profession, resulting from the necessity to provide oneself with an appropriate number of commissions. The previous lack of interest in delving into those relations on professional grounds is quite understood, as most often there are either no sources for it whatsoever, or they are fragmentary.

The present article is an attempt to undertake such a consideration over the friendship and cooperation of two architects: a Pole – Stanisław Zawadzki (1743– 1806) and a Saxon – Johann Christian Kamsetzer (1753–1795). They both have their monographs, however, they are already quite dated, while containing a lot of gaps and superficial interpretations. The offices they respectively held, the architect of the crown troops and the National Education Commission for Zawadzki and king Stanisław August’s architect of court for Kamsetzer, did not twarth either of them in their realization of various works commissioned by private investors. However, the status of both architect-designers was different: Zawadzki was in charge of a building company and was an independent contractor, Kamsetzer on the other hand was dependent on Domenico Merlini, who held the most important office of the architect of His Majesty King and Poland, through which he had a decisive say in numerous issues. A ten-year age gap between Zawadzki and Kamsetzer mostly favoured their master-disciple relation, particularly because the former was notorious for being raised by St. Lucas Academy in Rome, while also being its di merito member as well as the winner of the Clementine Competition.

There is no documentation preserved – relations, letters, notes – relating to the friendly bonds between Stanisław Zawadzki and Johann Christian Kamsetzer. There is, however, a piece of virtually undeniable evidence: in his artistic collection one of them had kept the sketchbooks of the other presented to him, filled with drawings made during the Italian trip of 1781. It seems that the cement of the friendship between Zawadzki and Kamsetzer was the sense of belonging to Mediterranean culture, a deep love for Italian art as well as their perceiving ancient culture as an embodiment of perfection. One could also risk a thesis that their mutual relations were strengthened by what was mastered by one of them and eluded the other. Zawadzki was a proficient illustrator, yet his disciplined line was the line of an architect, while Kamsetzer – which finds confirmation at least in his travel sketches – was a greatly talented illustrator and painter. A particular testimony to a fruitful cooperation of both architects can be found in two Warsaw residences: the palace of the Tyszkiewicz family in Krakowskie Przedmieście and the palace of the Raczyński family in Długa street.

The Palace of the Tyszkiewicz family is a creation of the two architects. Stanisław Zawadzki made the initial version of its design most certainly as early as 1780, as in the very beginning of the following year a contract was signed between him and the commissioner Ludwik Tyszkiewicz, a Lithuanian field hetman. However, it was not until much later, in 1785, that the building works themselves actually began and proceded according to a somewhat modified project and revised agreement principles. In 1786, when the palace was already finished and in raw state, the supervision of the works was taken over – according to another contract signed with Tyszkiewicz – by Johann Christian Kamsetzer. His creative input was limited merely to designing a sumptuous moulding decorations of some of the interiors as well as designing the furniture or mirrors. There was no – unlike the researchers in the past suggested – change of designer who would modify the architectonic achievements of the predecessor. Kamsetzer merely decorated the building already erected by Zawadzki. It might be concluded that it was the very cooperation undertaken at the palace of the Tyszkiewicz family that initiated the future interaction of both architects and gave birth to their friendship.

The palace of the Raczyński family was built in the years 1787–1789 for Kazimierz Raczyński, a crown marshall and the general of Greater Poland. Historians of the past had no doubts that it was the work of Kamsetzer, although there are too few solid source premises to confirm that thesis. However, while taking a closer and completely objective look (without being influenced by the attributions of old) at the composition of the front elevation, as well the plastic forms employed in its design, they will reveal great closeness to the ones used by Zawadzki, at least in the facade he had created a few years before to embellish the Piarist Palace of Collegium Nobilium. By contrast, they are completely unfamiliar to the rules followed by Kamsetzer. The former was dominated by austerity and monumentalism, the latter – finesse and ornateness. All the arguments of stylistic nature clearly point to the fact that the actual designer of the building was not Johann Christian Kamsetzer but Stanisław Zawadzki. Therefore, should the designer share of Kamsetzer be completely dismissed in the case of the capital city palace of the Raczyński family? It seems otherwise. There are his traits in the preserved decorations of the ball room as the rich mouldings reveal the artistic sense of Kamsetzer and his flair for the creation of this kind of decorations.

Therefore, it seems that the palace of the Raczyński family can constitute, right after that of the Tyszkiewicz family, another example of both architects’ cooperation on a single work. A cooperation proceding deftly and smootly as it resulted from their natural conditioning and talents. The work of the architect was later completed by the interior designer. It should be underlined that it was a frequent practice in Stanislavian times, and its idea was contained in the very contract, which pointed out that the ornaments (mouldings, frescoes) in the erected building would belong to a separate team of artists specializing it this particular area. The interior design was still in the hands of the investor and, as an especially important domaine, it was not infrequently treated as a distinct and independent stage of building works. Therefore, the realization of the capital city palace of the Tyszkiewicz family must bear testimony to the cooperation of both architects, Zawadzki and Kamsetzer, and not an argument for the competition between them as it has so far been wrongly interpreted. Their role in the erection of the Warsaw residence of the Raczyński family should be regarded likewise.

Szkicowniki malarza Marcina Zaleskiego

2021-12-27T17:48:45+01:00

The creative output of Marcin Zaleski, the most outstanding Polish landscape painter of his time, is known only fragmentarily due to enormous war losses. All the more valuable are his two sketchbooks preserved in the collection of Muzeum Narodowe (National Museum) in Warsaw. The books shed new light to the creative methods of the painter as well as the factors shaping his artistic attitude.

The earlier of the sketchbooks is a testimony to the painter’s trip around Europe in 1829. It contains drawings bearing marks of the finished artworks. Vast vedutas or visions of monuments engulfed by Italian countryside allow to consider Zaleski a skillful drawing artist sensitive to nature and its luministic effects. The drawings constitute not just memories of the visited places, they record the shapes of interesting architectonic compositions, multiplied in the artist’s subsequent output in his oil paintings. Side by side with them one can come across rough sketches and even construction drawings as well as an array of notes documenting the artist’s activity as a theatre stage designer. There, we can also see a sketch of an optical device, which correlates with press reports of the time stating that Zaleski employed daguerrotype in his painting.

The later one – the Polish sketchbook – contains rough drawings for the subsequent oil paintings. They depict landscapes and vedutas as well as the interiors of monuments. They allow for the reconstruction of Zaleski’s creative process: the lookout for the right frame, the description of weather phenomena, split-up drawings of more complex fragments of the view, employing sketching and optical equipment. The sketches made it possible to newly date some of the artwork as well as the very sketchbook itself for the year 1834. Thanks to the drawings it was possible to restore the link between Zaleski and a painting previously attributed to another artist. The sketchbook also contains rough drawings of the works considered lost.

Nurt historyzmu w dziewiętnastowiecznej biżuterii europejskiej

2021-12-27T17:56:08+01:00

19th-century references to the styles of the past epochs was not a discovery of the century. In 19th century, not for the first time – after the previous ‘renesances’ in European culture – the treasury of the past was looked into in search for inspiration and examples worth following. Inspirations by the past, repetitions of historic styles were so significant in the culture and science of 19th century that numerous later researchers were likely to consider it repetitive, eclectic, lacking originality.

A closer look at the intentions of 19th-century artists brings about a conviction that the references to the styles of the past epochs did not result from a lack of ideas or invention but quite otherwise, from the discovery of the significance and strength of history. Not only did history itself become a large branch of humanistic knowledge in 19th century but – as written by Szymon Askenazy – also ‘one of the most important kind of public service’, and a historian dealing with this discipline came to embody more ‘than a simple, useful worker of his science’. He became a ‘good, indispensable servant of his nation’.

History in the service of the nation triggered artistic phenomena unknown before. For the first time art was used as a weapon in the fight for the cause of the nation – understood as a group bound by common origin, common past, language, customs, religion.

Jewellery has assumed an active role in the promotion of the ideology employing historical styles. Due to its small size contributing to mobility, it became an effective tool for the propagation of national ideas as early in the second quarter of 19th century.

In search for examples worth following references were made to historical and archeological discoveries, ancient collections as well as – for the first time consciously – to the resources of folk art.

The historicism current which swept the 19th-century Europe, regardless of its causes and character, was one of the most powerful forces shaping the unique forms of jewellery of the time.

Ciało natury – natura ciała. Jakub Godziszewski. Malarstwo

2021-12-27T18:05:56+01:00

The article is the first attempt of a scientific insight into the current painting output of a young Polish painter Jakub Godziszewski. In the presented conceptualization of the artist’s creative output, the author focuses on two poles of artistic thinking Body of nature and nature of the body. They have accompanied Jakub Godziszewski since the beginning of his painting career, which has been evolving excellently ever since 2012 when he became a graduate of painting in the I Pracownia Malarska (1st painting workshop) of professor Jan Krzysztof Hrycek at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznaniu, as well as since his studies at Wydział Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny oraz Edukacji Artystycznej w zakresie Sztuk Plastycznych (Pedagogy-Artistic Department as well as Department of Artistic Education within Plastic Arts) in Kalisz, which he graduated from in 2014. Jakub Godziszewski’s outlook at 21st-century reality, through his artistic visions and musings, appears as a kind of preoccupation of the artist for the growing alienation of man from his natural surroundings, his isolation from nature as well as the atomization of interpersonal relations. The merging of nature with a human silhouette, where the aesthetics of male and female bodies play dominant roles, is frequently used in the painting compositions and contains the artists’s question about the human condition in the context of contemporary culture as well as social, religious and customary norms. In terms of stylistics, it is especially the male acts that refer to the rich tradition of the Greek and Roman canon of beauty, discovered afresh in the Renaissance period. The female compositions are dominated by the mood derived from Young Poland and modernism, mostly in terms of the poetic nature of the images. However, bearing in mind the contemporary means of access to artwork, not just painting but unlimited online resources of photographs, it can be stated with certainty that the artist from Ostrow Wielkopolski does not create in a void – not only in the separation from the burden of the output of the European artistic creation of the Mediterranean area but also from the heritage of world culture, in which the human figure has been, is, and certainly will be the most important subject matter in artistic activities – in the realm of sculpture, painting and graphic design alike.

Rozwojowe ciągi formalno-ideowe w ramach konstrukcji czasu artystycznego George’a Kublera

2021-12-27T16:23:51+01:00

In the article an attempt was made to take a new look at the methodology of an acclaimed art historian George Kubler, still useful and mind-stirring to researchers. A reference was made to a group of concepts, including in particular system age and above all to logic and some breakthrough, sectional ways of thinking about changes embracing an artistic output. The significance of Kubler’s concept is of universal character, including the whole of the history of art discipline, the artefacts examined by it as well as artistic-cultural processes. The usefulness of the research method first presented in 1962 seems to transgress the boundaries of history of art as a scientific discipline. The most important, theoretical treatise was taken into account: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things in both Polish and English versions. The basis for consideration was later complemented by Kubler’s methodological articles, further publications from his scientific output, reviews and introductions to the main paper. The support was the complex reception of Kubler’s ideas in Polish and worldwide academic publishings. Attention was paid to the possibilities brought about by the introduction into the circle of numerous comparisons and contexts of the author’s mind as well as other sciences. Namely, an indication was made to the parallel methods and ways of thinking derived from the science of algorhythms and informatics, developing as the Shape of Time was being written. Kubler’s work can be classified as part of philosophy of art or theory of art discipline. It is natural to compare it to Heraklitean sentences. Among art historians Henri Focillon’s output was referred to as having the main influence upon Kubler. At the same time, the author of the Shape of Time participated in the translation of the main work of his teacher – Life of Forms in Art. It is still worthwhile to read and use the thoughts included in Kubler’s works.

Nota o Autorach

2021-12-27T18:18:28+01:00

Nota o Autorach