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As represented in Balkan cinema – and here we mainly look at cinematic texts created in the context of former Yugoslavia’s constituent republics -- the artist is suspect. The presence of the artist is awkwardly tolerated – because the artist is alien, cosmopolitan, and extraneous. He may react in unpredictable ways or have eccentric wishes. The artist may seek fame but no fame can come. The artist is insufficiently Balkan. He is better off being abroad. Even where films put the artist in the centre of attention, there is indolent insufficiency in representing the artist. In this playful exploration, we look at various cinematic texts that have provided commentary on the status of the artist in a Balkan context. The concept of ‘Balkan’ used here is not a geographical category but rather complies with the definition given in my book Cinema of Flames (2001) as well as, occasionally, is used in the sense implied by Marina Abramovic in her short Balkan Erotic Epic (2011).
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The paper discusses the construction of the concept of the oriental woman (the exotic “other” woman) in West European paintings and literature. It analyses the ways and means through which “Eastern erotica” develops into a cultural mythologem as well as the reasons why the erotic is increasingly used in the construction of the concept of the exotic in West European art in the 18th and 19th century. What is also given thought and careful consideration is the specificity of the Romantic notions of exoticism and exotic local colour (exotisme et couleur locale exotique).
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Domenico Cardelli, Sculptor of King Stanislaus Augustus In August 1797, the Roman artist Domenico Cardelli, one of the most outstanding sculptors of the last quarter of the 18th century, died aged merely thirty. His artistic activity, lasting not much over a decade, was in high esteem by his contemporary. Closely associated with such personalities as the archaeologist Ennio Quirino Visconti, the diplomat and collector Cardinal Stefano Borgia, or the Danish archaeologist and numismatist Georg (Jørgen) Zoëga, Cardelli was a pivotal figure in the sculpture of the time, precursor of purism, and the major rival of Antonio CanovaDomenico Cardelli was a descendent of the family of well-known Rome’s sculptors. His father Lorenzo Cardelli (ca 1733-94), was a sculptor decorator (intagliatore di marmi), restorer, and dealer of antique sculptures. Four sons of Lorenzo were sculptors, too: Domenico, Pietro, Giuseppe (also called architetto), and Eusebio (also intagliatore); the fifth, Salvatore, was an engraver, while his daughter Maria married the sculptor Pietro Marchetti of Carrara, the latter, in his turn, being Pietro Tenerani’s nephew. The Cardelli family lived in Rome in via del Babuino (formerly Strada Paolina), in the Parish of San Lorenzo in Lucina; it was there that Lorenzo had his studio, renowned mainly for the production of sculpture-ornamented fireplaces and copies of antique sculptures. In 1785, Lorenzo Cardelli executed several works for the residence of King Stanislaus Augustus in Warsaw, among others, two fire places in white marble, green porphyry, and gilded bronze, meant for the Throne Hall of the Royal Castle, for which he received 460 scudos. The fireplaces were standing in Cardelli’s studio in the autumn of 1785, awaiting being dispatched to Warsaw together with other sculptures for the Polish court. It was there that on 25 November 1785 Katarzyna Plater née Sosnowski saw them; when visiting Rome, she also visited Cardelli’s studio, and recorded the fact in her diary. Apart from other marble sculptures, as well as those in alabaster and porphyry, she saw there a Medusa head in white marble for King Stanislaus Augustus. Additionally, Lorenzo Cardelli executed for King Stanislaus Augustus a marble copy of an antique vase from Villa Medici, and yet another fireplace with rich sculpture decoration. Born in Rome on 1 March 1767, Domenico Cardelli began studying literature. As it turned out, however, he had a talent for drawing, and soon became disciple of Giuseppe Cades, a painter and sculptor; furthermore, he studied archaeology under E.Q. Visconti, G. Zoëg, and Cardinal Borgia. In the 1783 Concorso Clementino at the Academia di San Luca he won the first prize in the third painting category for a drawing showing the Capitoline statue of Antinous, while in 1789, he won ex aequo with Michele Van Lintem the first sculpture category for the terracotta relief The Feast of Belshazzar, King of Babylon. In 1789, Cardelli executed two sculpture works: a marble bust of Prudenza Capizucchi for her tomb in the Rome Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and the tomb statue of John Smith, lieutenant of the British Navy, for the London Church of St Mary Aldermanbury. In 1794, he completed the tomb of Countess Chiara Rosa Maria Spinucci, the wife of Franz Xaver Albert August von Wettin, Prince of Saxony, who passed away in 1792; the tomb placed in the Fermo Cathedral. Several years before, he had most likely executed a marble bust of Prince Xaver von Wettin. There are also some other busts that date back to the 1790s: in 1793, Cardelli sculpted a bust of an anonymous man; in 1796, a bust of Sophia Magdalene Knuth as Diana; of the writer Friederike Brun; and Cardinal Stefano Borgia. His work was also the model for the bust of the Danish Consul Edmund Bourke, hewn in marble by Thorvaldsen, as well as the marble bust of Duke Raffaele Riario Sforza from the Naples Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri. In late July 1797, Cardelli set off for Naples in relation to executing the tomb of the Dukes of Riario-Sforza. On the way, when crossing the Pontine Marshes, he took seriously ill with da febbre perniciosa, and died in August, possibly outside Rome. Some of Cardelli’s works are known only from mentions in archives and literature, like the life-size figures and groups: Jason and Medea, Mercury, Venus and Cupid, Cupid and Psyche (hewn in marble after a plaster model already following his death), as well as the relief Castor and Pollux, executed for the Lord of Bristol. Two plaster busts made by Cardelli were purchased in August 1797 by Bertel Thorvaldsen, this in an auction held following the artist’s death. A significant amount of information related to Domenico Cardelli and the artistic production of the family studio he headed after his father’s death, is included in the licences to export art works outside the Papal State issued by Cardinal Chamberlains, and kept at the Archivio di Stato di Roma (Camerale II, Antichità e Belle Arti, busta 14, filza 298 i 299).It is the contacts with the court of King Stanislaus Augustus that were of major importance for the research into Cardelli’s artistic output. It was by individuals from the surroundings of the King that first commissions were made from the young artist; these had an essential impact on his career. For the King, his family, and individuals from the royal court, as well as for many representatives of Polish aristocracy, Domenico Cardelli sculpted quite a substantial number of portrait busts in white marble as well as several other works; and one of the sculpture groups considered to be the most accomplished in his oeuvre was purchased for the Polish collections several years following the artist’s death. In 1784, two ladies, emotionally bonded with King Stanislaus Augustus, set off for Italy regardless of each other: the King’s mistress Baroness Maria de Cumano Schütter and Elżbieta Grabowska née Szydłowski, a supposed morganatic spouse of the King, who was in Italy in 1784-85 accompanied by her daughter Aleksandra, her brother, and her cousin Miss Sobolewska. Both maidens accompanying Grabowska, namely Aleksandra Grabowska and Sobolewska, were portrayed in February 1785 by Angelica Kauffman. In the course of that trip, Mrs Grabowska purchased in Rome valuable antiques meant for King Stanislaus Augustus. Both ladies, namely Baroness Schütter and Mrs Grabowska, visited the studio of Lorenzo Cardelli. On the occasion, Maria de Cumano Schütter commissioned from the eldest son of Lorenzo, Domenico, her bust portrait in white marble, which, signed and dated 1785, may have been the artist’s debut. It is his earliest known sculpture, and the signature marks that he executed it aged 18 (the sculpture at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini in Rome, its unsigned replica at the Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw, Fig.1). Elżbieta Grabowska, in her turn, commissioned two marble busts there: of her own and her 14-year-old daughter Aleksandra (both known merely from archival mentions). The busts of Mrs Grabowska and Baroness Schütter were viewed in the Cardellis’ studio in the spring of 1785 by Count Bernardino Campello, who wrote in his diary: ‘Cardelli. Si viddero lavorare i ritratti di due Signore Polacche’. This mention must have been related to Domenico Cardelli who signed the bust of Baroness Schütter, while the other of the ladies was most likely Mrs Grabowska (her daughter would have been referred to as signorina). The busts of Mrs Grabowska and her daughter Aleksandra in the autumn of 1785 were in the studio of the Roman engraver, printmaker, and architect Carlo Antonini, bearing the title of the Architetto di Sua Maestà il Re di Polonia. Both sculptures, kept there before being dispatched to Poland next to the vases and bas-reliefs for the King, were seen on 4 November 1785 by Katarzyna Plater née Sosnowski, who wrote in her diary: ‘[4 novembre – Roma] Après diné j’ai été chez Antonini où j’ai vue de superbes vases en marbre blanc, des bas reliefs, tout cela doit être envoi au Roi, le buste de la Grabowska et de sa fille est parfaitement bien fait’. The fact that the bust of Aleksandra Grabowska, similarly as that of her mother, was executed by Domenico Cardelli, seems to be confirmed by the mention that at the Łazienki there was the bust belonging to Mrs Grabowska: ‘le buste de M[a]d[ame] La C[omtesse] Cracinska par Cardelli’ (as of 1787 Aleksandra Grabowska was the wife of Franciszek Salezy Krasicki) that was given to Aleksandra’s brother-in-law in early 1796.Maybe the marble statue showing Aleksandra Grabowska as a vestal was a work by Domenico Cardelli or by his father Lorenzo. That statue was seen in the Cardellis’ studio by Katarzyna Plater on 25 November 1785, who wrote down in her diary that ‘la statue de la petite Grabowska en vestale est bien fait’. It is also known that King Stanislaus Augustus presented Aleksandra Grabowska’s brother-in-law with the sculpture Vestale d’après l’antique, evaluated at 400 ducats, and donated together with the ‘Buste de Mad. la Comtesse Krasicka’.The most exquisite of Demonico Cardelli’s sculptures, whose creation was related to that stay in Rome of the ladies from the closest surroundings of the Polish King, was a marble bust of Stanislaus Augustus (Fig. 2) The sculpture may have been executed on a personal instruction from the King, following his portrait painted by Giovanni Battista Lampi. It had been brought to Rome by Baroness Schütter, who also surveyed the completion of the sculpture, giving the artist information as for the similarity to the model. The bust of Stanislaus Augustus was shown by Raffaele Morghen in a copperplate engraving executed in 1786 under the supervision of Giovanni Volpato, featuring an inscription that it was sculpted in Rome by Domenico Cardelli (Fig. 3). On 19 August 1786, Lorenzo Cardelli applied for a permit to export the marble bust of the Polish monarch, and executed by his son Domenico, to Warsaw; the sculpture was evaluated at 300 scudos, and the licence was issued on 21 August. On that very day the bust was viewed in the Cardellis’ studio by another Roman sculptor and antique dealer Vincenzo Pacetti, who liked the sculpture, and wrote down in his diary: ‘Adi 21. [Agosto 1786] Sono stato a vedere il ritratto del Re di Polonia fatto in marmo dal figlio di Cardelli Domenico, e mi è piaciuto’. An extensive mention of the bust of Stanislaus Augustus was published in August 1786 by Rome’s ‘Giornale delle Belle Arti’, while in September 1786, an enthusiastic article on the sculpture was published in ‘Memorie per le Belle Arti’. The bust of the King brought to Poland was put in the Łazienki Palace’s Dining Room, where it is placed today, too.Baroness Schütter passed away in 1793. Among the objects she bequeathed to the King was her portrait bust by Cardelli, the copperplate plate made after the sculpture by Morghen, and the King’s portrait by Lampi that had served as model for the sculptor; the reception of all those items was signed off by the King’s court painter Marcello Bacciarelli on 30 April 1793. The sculpture donated to the King by Baroness Schütter may have most likely been a replica of the sculpture that had for several years been in the Łazienki Palace. Similarly as in the case of the bust of Baroness Schütter, apart from the King’s bust dispatched from Rome to Warsaw in 1786, Cardelli may have also made its replica. Since the sculpture in the Łazienki Palace is not signed, it should be assumed that neither its replica did bear the artist’s signature. In 1787, for the sculpture portraits executed for King Stanislaus Augustus and his family, Domenico Cardelli was awarded the title of the ‘Scultore di Sua Maestà il Re di Polonia’, which may account for the gift of 50 ducats sent to him by the King on 24 September 1787. Cardelli, in his turn, sent a letter to Gaetano Ghigiotti, Royal Secretary to deal with Italian Matters, dated 25 October 1787, in which he was expressing his deep gratitude to the King; in his letter of 25 November 1787, he was thanking Ghigiotti for having recommended him to Marquis Tommas Antici, Polish representative in the Papal State. Ghigiotti responded to these letters on 26 December 1787, addressing Cardelli: ‘Sig. Domenico Cardelli Scultore di S[ua] M[aestà] il Re di Polonia’. Among the Polish King’s collections there was also a drawing by Cardelli of the antique statue of Fortune from the Museo Pio Clementino (Fig.4).In the early 1790s, King Stanislaus Augustus’ niece Konstancja Tyszkiewicz née Poniatowski (1759-1830) left for Italy. During her stay in Rome from January to May 1792, she had a portrait painted by Angelica Kauffman, a marble bust made by Demonico Cardelli (Fig. 5). The sculpture remained family property for many years, while in 1830 it was placed in the family mausoleum, in the Holy Trinity Chapel at the Kraków Cathedral. In 1793, Domenico Cardelli made three more marble busts of Poles, all of them signed and dated. The bust of Marcelina Worcell née Bielski (1773-1849), which had reached the National Ossoliński Institute in Lwów by 1828 (Fig. 6), was presented in the 1830 lithograph (Fig. 7). The bust of Antoni Józef Lanckoroński (1761-1830) remained in the hands of the Lanckoroński family in Vienna until WW II, while in Lancokoroński’s tomb in Wodzisław its copy from the mid-19th century may have been placed. The bust of an unidentified youth, showing possibly Maurycy Tomasz Łoś (Fig. 8) may come from the Łoś family palace in Narol. Interestingly, Domenico Cardelli executed the tomb of Aleksandra Krasicka née Grabowski, King Stanislaus Augustus’ natural daughter, who died on 12 May 1789 aged 18. The statue is known from the description of Georg Zoëga in his letter from Rome dated 8 September 1789, and addressed to Frederik Arveprins in Copenhagen, published in the Copenhagen-issued spring 1799 edition of the magazine ‘Ny Minerva et Maanedsfkrivt’. From Zoëg’s description it can be deduced that the statue ‘for en Grevinde Grabowska i Polen’ was made up of a three-sided base in the form of a candelabra on which the bust of the deceased was placed; the base was decorated with a relief showing the personification of Grief leaning over a sarcophagus in a cypress grove, with the Genius of Death leaning against a torch placed upside down. The tomb was thus executed by Cardelli at least in its model. The story of the commission and the sculpture’s history thus remain unexplained, while its destination unknown. Archival records, in turn, show that on the initiative of Stanislaus Augustus André Le Brun, ‘the first sculptor’ at the Royal Court’, in 1792 executed a marble bas-relief for the tomb of Aleksandra Krasicka, while the sculptures he authored meant for the statue (the woman’s figure in the relief, medallion with Krasicka’s portrait, the portrait of her mother Elżbieta Grabowska, and an unidentified head), were mentioned in the catalogue of the royal collection of sculptures from 1795. The monument remains unfinished, and its final destination unknown. The tomb of Countess Krasicka as described by Zoëga in certain element compositions reveals some analogies with the tomb of Chiara Rosa Maria Spinucci, Cardelli’s work placed in the Fermo Cathedral in 1794. There, the Genius of Death, standing with an extinguished torch, is leaning against an urn on a high plinth on which the medallion portrait of the deceased is placed. The artist presents here, almost simultaneously with Canova, the figure of the Genius of Death, a motif of antique provenance, applied commonly in the Neo-Classicist sculpture. It seems, however, that the figure of a seated Genius of Death leaning against a reversed torch, as we know it from Canova’s tomb of Clement XIII, unveiled in the Basilica of St Peter in Rome in April 1792, had been applied earlier by Cardelli in the tomb of Aleksandra Krasicka. It is therefore highly likely that the monument of Countess Krasicka should be attributed the breakthrough importance in the history of sepulchral sculpture of the period. The tomb in the Fermo Cathedral features a representation of the White Eagle, Poland’s emblem, since a predecessor of the father of Countess Spinucci together with all his offspring was made a Count by King John III Sobieski in 1676, acquiring the right to include the Polish emblem in his coat of arms. Chiara Rosa Maria’s father Giuseppe Spinucci, on 10 July 1765 made a loyalty oath to King Stanislaus Augustus before the Archbishop of Fermo. Both tombs, i.e. that of Aleksandra Krasicka and Chiara Maria Rosa Spinucci thus commemorated individuals bonded with King Stanislaus Augustus. There were close connections between the Polish court and the husband of Countess Spinucci, Prince Franz Xaver Albert August von Wettin of Saxony, since he was the son of King Augustus III von Wettin of Poland. It is hard to judge whether these relations could have somehow influenced the contacts of the Prince of Saxony with Cardelli, whom he most likely met in Rome where he moved in 1789. It was then that the artist executed a marble bust of the Prince and his wife’s tomb, and several years later a marble bust of Prince Raffaele Riario-Sforza, whom Beatrice Marin, daughter of Franz Xaver von Wettin and Chiara Rosa Maria Spinucci married in 1794, following which he also made the tomb of the Princes of Riario Sforza, his last work. In the above-mentioned letter from Rome, among the works of Domenico Cardelli, Georg Zoëga mentioned the Cupid and Psyche group that was at the time a clay model, which was regarded to be one of the most beautiful sculptures created in Rome. Following the death of the Artist, the group was hewn in marble by his brother-in-law Pietro Marchetti of Carrara. The whereabouts of the clay model of the sculpture are unknown; also until recently the marble sculpture had been regarded as lost. The recent research, however, allowed to find the sculpture, and to present its history. Count Jan Feliks Tarnowski and his wife Waleria née Stroynowski, accompanied by Waleria’s father Walerian Stroynowski, were travelling across Italy in 1803-4. They visited artists’ studios in Rome, Florence, and Naples, purchasing art works. From the correspondence from the trip and other notes it turns out that Walerian Stroynowski purchased then a marble Cupid and Psyche group in Rome; its model had been executed by the prematurely dead sculptor Cardelli, and it had been hewn in marble by his brother-in-law Marchetti. He bought this sculpture from the ‘sculptor Cardelli’. This must have been Giuseppe Cardelli, Domenico’s brother, who on 27 March 1804 applied for a licence to export from Rome a substantial number of sculptures evaluated at 4,000 piastres, which included the group in question. He was granted the necessary permit on 29 March. Upon its arrival in Poland, the sculpture was placed in Stroynowski’s palace in Horochow in Volhynia; also there the famous statue of Antonio Canova Perseus with the Head of Medusa purchased on the same occasion by Waleria Tarnowska was put. When years later Stroynowski moved to St Petersburg, he took a big portion of his collections with him, including the Cupid and Psyche group in 1827. The further vicissitudes of the sculpture were unknown. Some dozen years ago Domenico Cardelli’s sculpture was identified in one of the exhibits for years on display at the Hermitage. It was later ascertained that the group, having been brought to St Petersburg, remained the property of Stroynowski until his death in 1834, while in 1847, it was sold by his widow to the Hermitage. Apart from this group Walerian Stroynowski and his son-in-law Jan Feliks Tarnowski bought many other sculptures from the Cardellis’ workshop. The studio, run after Lorenzo’s death by his eldest son Domenico, was taken over by his brothers: Giuseppe (1769-1822) and Eusebio (1771-1837), defined in documents as the ‘fratelli Cardelli’ with whom their brother-in-law Pietro Marchetti cooperated. They transformed the family studio into an efficient business offering varied services, whose products: sculptures and other marble products such as vases, fireplaces, candelabras, obelisks, tops, statuettes, and altars, were exported far beyond the borders of the Papal State. In the Archivio di Stato di Roma there are some dozen supplications from 1802-5 in which ‘Giuseppe e Fratelli Cardelli’ apply for the licence to export their products. In December 1803, Tarnowski commissioned a life-size statue in white marble presenting his ancestor Grand Crown Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski. Stroynowski commissioned from the sculptor 12 undefined busts and four statues presenting: Jan Zamoyski, Stefan Czarniecki, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Stanisław Żółkiewski, as well as a copy of the statue Hebe by Antonio Canova. On that occasion Stroynowski bought from Pietro Marchetti many sculptures, mainly copies of Antique statutes. Both Stroynowski and the Tarnowskis commissioned works from many other Roman sculptors, and the works purchased in Italy would be reaching the Polish soil from early 1805 throughout whole 1806. There are mentions of the sculptor Cardelli working for the Tarnowskis in 1805 and 1806 in relation to payments for the executed sculptures. Payments made to Cardelli for the works for Jan Feliks Tarnowski are also recorded in 1816 and 1817, whereas an undated letter asking for the payment for the works for Tarnowski and Stroynowski is signed: ‘Giuseppe e Fratelli Cardelli’. It is thanks to the works executed for Poles, and recorded in archival documents, that Giuseppe Cardelli, a figure previously quite enigmatic, appears to be an artist of substantial renown and important accomplishments. The studio of the Cardelli family was one of the most renowned sculpture workshops that operated in Rome in the last three decades of the 18th century. The works created there, purchased mainly by foreigners, and dispatched far beyond the frontiers of the Papal State, reached many European countries, also Poland. Both Lorenzo Cardelli and all his sons worked for Poles, and the activity of their studio was bonded with Poland from the 1780s until the second decade of the next century. Domenico Cardelli, one of the most outstanding sculptors of the decline of the 18th century, and the leading individuality in the artistic circles in Rome of the time, executed almost half of his output on the commission of Poles, while the relations with the Polish court and work for the individuals from the closest circles of King Stanislaus Augustus caused that he received the title of the ‘Scultore di Sua Maestà il Re di Polonia’. Ten works are known that the artist executed for Polish clients, of which at least two had replicas made. The sculpture group purchased for Polish collections already following his death, and considered to be one of the most beautiful sculptures in Rome of the time, is related to those works. The collections of King Stanislaus Augustus also featured Cardelli’s drawing showing an antique sculpture from the Museo Pio Clementino. The activity connected with Poland and Poles must have undoubtedly been an important part of his accomplishments, and constitutes a vital aspect of the research into the oeuvre of this illustrious artist.
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Voyage Pittoresque of Jan Potocki and an Unknown Egyptian Pendant from the Trip to Turkey and Egypt in 1784 In the Wilanów collection of the National Library in Warsaw we have rediscovered three prints engraved after two lost drawings executed in August 1784 in Egypt by the outstanding Enlightenment writer and Orientalist Jan Potocki (1761-1815). The prints were titled: Vue des Piramides de Gissa and Vue de la Statue Colossale du Sphinx de Gissa. The first of them, an etching with a copperplate engraving, shows the Pyramids of Khufu and Khafre in Giza, and a caravan, seen in the foreground, heading towards the Great Pyramid. The second etching shows the Sphinx en face against the Pyramid of Mykerinos seen in the distant background. For many years the etchings docummenting the visit to Giza were regarded as lost. Copies of the prints served in the Potocki family in the 19th century as family mementoes. The one to mention them is Katarzyna Potocka née Branicki, wife of Adam Potocki, grandson of Jan, during the trip to Egypt in 1853. In a letter, following her visit to the pyramids on 30 March, she recorded: ‘We have also viewed the collosal Sphinx which is close to the pyramids. It interested me, as I have a print executed on site by Mr Jan Potocki, Adam’s grandfather’. This piece of information on the print showing the Sphinx should thus be connected with the other unique print preserved in the Wilanów collection. Both plates had been trimmed and framed in the Album called Melange (WAF. 797) in the times of Aleksander Potocki, namely in the 2nd quarter of the 19th century. They are the only known prints executed on the grounds of the drawings by the author of the Saragossa Manuscript during his lifetime. They remain inseparably related to his literary debut published without illustrations in 1788: Voyage en Turquie et en Egypte The print pendant, possibly executed in Paris and Düsseldorf in ca 1787 by the German engravers Carl Guttenberg and Heinrich Schmitz, in view of the presented epistolary material constituted mainly a beginning of a series of prints meant to compose an album of the voyage pittoresque type: the most fashionable publication category in the Grand Tour era. The genesis of both prints is reconstructed in the article, and so are the circumstances that influenced the shape of the planned publication, beginning with the trip to Turkey and Egypt, through the trip back to Poland, a short stay in Karlsbad, living in Paris, and the trip to Tuscany in 1786 when accompanying his mother-in-law Princess Izabella Lubomiska. She is presented as the instigator of the interests and undertakings of young Jan Potocki, additionally with possible conditionings. In the article the discussed prints and records of the trip shown in the context of the picturesque and sublime aesthetical trends of the time are presented. The interpretation of the ‘sublime’ style of the print presenting a view of the Great Pyramid, based on the commentary of Potocki himself, has been juxtaposed with the considerations of Immanuel Kant included in his Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). In the part dedicated to the mathematical evaluation of grandeur as an element indispensable to perceive the sublime the latter quotes and develops Potocki’s idea. Through the analyses of the texts a direct dependence of the concept of the ‘mathematical sublime’ created by Kant on Potocki’s remarks included in the letter describing his visit to Giza, and published anonymously in the book Voyage en Turquie et en Egypte, is demonstrated.
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Kiosque à la Turque, an Unknown Design of Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer for Stanislaus Augustus’ Łazienki In the Gerard Ciołek Portfolios at the National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad/?National Institute of Heritage in Warsaw there is an unknown design of a gazebo, marked: Elévation d’un Kiosc ou gloriette a la turque destiné pour le Sommet d’une montagne dans un Jardin anglaise, executed by Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer (1753-95), the architect of Stanislaus Augustus. It may be that, previously unknown, ‘Turkish Gazebo for the Łazienki’, an unaccomplished project. It shows a garden pavilion on the layout of a cross, on a high underpinning partially embedded in the escarpment, adorned with bossage, preceded with two-flight stairs featuring a rectangular landing. The higher and almost square in its layout pavilion’s middle part, is covered with a hipped rood, crowned with a half-moon pinnacle, with the lower lateral annexes covered with gable roofs. The front elevation of three high rectangular entrances divided by pillars, featuring three rectangular windows above, is open. The modest geometrized elevation decoration is contrasted by the character of the interior containing almost a square salon flanked by two annexes. The longitudinal section shows walls with plafonds and parietal sofas in niches. The net of geometrical divisions organizes the varied decorative motifs into a logical whole, giving it a character of a richly ornamented Oriental interior. The design is characterized by Kamsetzer-specific decisive line, subtle wash, and a good setting of the structure in landscape, whose generalizing vision does not allow for precise location. This being all the more challenging, as there was no separate section in Łazienki for jardin anglais. An attempt is made to approximate the dating and circumstances of the design’s creation, particularly in the context of the evolution of Stanislaus Augustus’ views on jardin anglais. In 1754, on his trip to England Stanislaus Poniatowski also visited Stowe (Stow), which he was guided through by the owner Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, and his brothers. He formulated his impressions in the memoirs: ‘La maison et les jardins de Stow, les plus vastes qu’aucun particulier eut alors en Angleterre, fixèrent d’autant plus mon attention, que cet endroit est le premirer où le goût du jardinage chinois fut étalé. Déjà de mon temps ce goût s’était raffiné et perfectionné dans d’autres campagnes. Stow, cependant, était encore regardé avec vénération, parce que c’était le berceau de ce nouveau goût, qui faisait décrier les jardins symétrisés, la triste famille des ifs et tous les colifichets hollandais que Guillaume III avait introduits en Angleterre. Ce nouveau goût, qui consiste principalement à produire des paysages artificiels dans les lieux qu’on veut décorer, était devenu une espèce de secte nouvelle et en avait presque toute la ferveur et toute l’antipathie intolérante contre la doctrine ancienne. Je ne me hasardai qu’une fois ou deux de témoigner quelque regret sur l’exclusion totale de tout alignement, en fait d’eaux ou d’allées.’ (Mémoires du roi Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski, vol. 1, St.-Pétersbourg 1914, ed. Serge M. Goriaïnow, s. 120). The 1754 episode affected the King’s opinion, made him ‘treat the concept of landscape garden with reservation’.Having assumed as the dogma of his policy the need to ‘break away’ from the Saxon times, the King was seeking inspiration for his patronage directly in Paris. As for garden art, he would also resort to reports of his court members travelling to France, these allowing him to follow one of the symptoms of Anglomania dominating there, namely the reception of landscape garden, and the development of the assumptions of the Picturesque Garden type. This is testified to by the Essay sur le Jardinage Anglois, 1774 (Biblioteka XX. Czartoryskich, Kraków, MS. MNK 118) dedicated to him by August Fryderyk Moszyński. Moreover, the King sent Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer on a trip (1780-83) via Vienna to Italy, France, and England, for him to e.g. execute drawings there meant to show the latest ensembles and garden pavilions. The architect sent the following: from the Vienna Schönbrunn: descriptions and drawings of three cascades and the Roman Ruins (1778); from Paris: a picture inventory of the Hôtel le Grimod de La Reynière (1767) Palace with a Jardin anglais; from the Bagatelle Palace of Count Charles d’Artois (1777): views of garden pavilions of the Chinese bridge with the Gazebo and the Hermitage. Upon his return home, Kamsetzer joined the group of artists who, with the King’s participation, were working on altering the Łazienki: Dominik Merlini (as of 1774), Jan Chrystian Schuch (as of 1781), and Jakub Kubicki (1783-84). Following the creation of an irregular southern pond, plans were made for arranging other parts. In his Design for the Łazienki Layout from the Side of the Entry (1784), Stanislaus Augustus proposed to extend the northern pond for it to form an irregular fluid bank, and to leave the natural forest on the western banks: an asymmetrical composition, however not applying the concept of jardin anglaise that was to appear in 1792.An important testimony to the changes of the King’s views can be found in his correspondence from 1786 with the English man of letters Horace Walpole (1717-97), co-author of Strawberry Hill in Twickenham near London, author of the Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762-1771), in which he also included the history outline of gardens in England titled History of Modern Taste in Gardening. Having learnt about this major work, Stanislaus Augustus made attempts to acquire it, starting correspondence with its author. In his letter to Walpole (dated 6 June 1786), when referring to the situation in Poland, he mentioned departing from a symmetrically planned regular garden for the sake of landscape garden: ‘as it is but a few years since we do here creep out of the servitude of symmetry, we have not yet had time to come to the opposite excess, against which you endeavour to guard your Country’. This was a reference to the stand of Horace Walpole who opposed extremes, these including ‘exotism’. This praise of abandoning symmetry reveals that the King was but a moderate fan of the jardin anglaise, and if viewed in the context of the Łazienki, it allows to bring forth the dating of the Kiosque à la turque to around 1786.The gazebo was among the Orientalizing: Chinese- and Turkish-style pavilions designed by Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer for the Łazienki. The designating of the gazebo design as: [...] destiné pour le Sommet d’une montagne dans un Jardin anglais, points out to its planned location at the top of the hill in the jardin anglais section. There are two possible locations. The first: the one connected with the identification of the structure on the square layout at the top of the hill planned in the above-mentioned 1784 design of the King. The second: on the western edges of the Łazienki, close to the ‘Golgota Hill’ at the end of the Via Crucis in the former Ujazdów Calvary; the hill that under Stanislaus Augustus, following the earth filling of the ravine between the Łazienki and the Ujazdów Avenue (1777-88), turned into the point of the escarpment, while on its southern part, across from the Ujazdów Castle, plans were made (1781-85) to raise the Church of Divine Providence.The pavilion designed for the Łazienki manifested the fashion for Turquerie (from the early 18th century), this including garden pavilions inspired by Ottoman architecture, e.g. the mosque in Kew near London (from 1757, William Chambers), the minaret in Parc Monceau near Paris (1773-83, Louis Carrogis), Turkish Pavilon in Hagaparken near Stockholm (ca 1785, Fredrik Magnus Piper). In France, they were heralded by wooden garden pavilions in Lorraine raised for the former Polish King Stanislaus Leszczyński by Emmanuel Héré de Corny: in Lunéville – Kiosque à la turque (1737) and Trèfle à la chinoise (1738-41), and in Commercy – Kiosque (1741). Their genesis derives from wooden Turkish architecture which Leszczyński had become acquainted with in Moldova’s Bender. His Lorraine estates shown in the work of Emmanuel Héré de Corny, entitled Plans et élévations de la place royale de Nancy & et des autres edifices à l’environment bâtis par les Ordes du Roy de Pologne, duc de Lorraine. Dedié au Roy de France par Héré, premier architecte de SA majesté Polonaise (Paris 1753), were inspired by the structures of the French Picturesque Garden. They were also well known to Poles visiting Lunéville, among whom there must have also been August Fryderyk Moszyński who in the Essai sur le Jardinage Anglois (1774, page 97) dedicated to Stanislaus Augustus, proposed a gazebo: ‘Sur l’endroit le plus élevé de cette colline du côté de la riviere, on trouve un Kyosk Turc (87) qui sert de Belvedere. Il est fait en forme de trefle garni des jalousies, tout y est arrangé suivant la coutume Turque. On découvre de la une grande partie du cours de la riviere, et tou la contrée qui est en déla’. The comparison of the Lorraine Trèfle à la chinoise Pavilion with Kamsetzer’s Kiosque à la turque demonstrates a number of similarities: both are wooden, of ‘modest’ elevation, and with richly decorated interiors with blinds; additionally, in the layout of the Łazienki gazebo one can discern a simplified and geometrized trefoil.Furthermore, when creating the design, Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer had studied Ottoman architecture for almost a year when as a draughtsman of Stanislaus Augustus’ diplomatic mission to the court of Sultan Abdul Hamid I in Istanbul (1776-77) he was getting to know this original architecture. The studies from his own observation allowed his own attempt at modernizing the traditional form and referring to Oriental ornamentation (instead of stylization of e.g. Emanuel Héré and William Chambers). These issues in relation to the work of Stanislaus Leszczyński and Héré are discussed by Nebahat Avcioğlu who regards them to belong to the early (ca mid-18th century) stage of the exotic trend in a Turkish ‘costume’. Later on, better studies of this art allowed to imitate more precisely traditional Ottoman forms, and Kamsetzer’s design of the gazebo is a very accomplished example in this case. As for the ideological content of the Kiosque à la turque, the context of the political tension between Turkey and Russia has to be pointed to: after the annexation of Crimea by Russia (1783), and Turkey’s declaration of war (1787) both countries insisted on an alliance with Poland. This is why, among others, Stanislaus Augustus travelled to meet with the Tsarina in Kaniów (23 February – 22 July 1787). Upon returning, the King ceremoniously unveiled (14 September 1787) in the Łazienki the Monument of John III meant to commemorate the victory over the Turks in the battle of Vienna (1683). Under such circumstance it may have been a little awkward to be thinking of raising the Kiosque à la turque of such a genuine and refined design. The design of the Kiosque à la turque can be regarded as a ‘link’ in the evolution of Stanislaus Augustus’s views on landscape gardening, while the correspondence with Horace Walpole sheds light on the change of his attitude, and the ‘English context’ in the chronology of landscape gardens in Warsaw.
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Jędrzej Śniadecki’s Tomb at Horodniki n. Oszmiana (1839). Questions Related to the Ideological Programme In the paper, an attempt is made to find the answer to whether there exists, and if so, how is it reflected, the connection between a piece a sepulchral art and the deceased. The starting point for the analysis, limited to Polish examples only, was found in the tomb described in the title, preserved at a country cemetery at Horodniki (from 1945 Grodno Province, Belarus). Jędrzej Śniadecki, an illustrious scientist: a chemist, doctor, biologist, and philosopher, was born in 1768. Following his studies in Kraków, Padua, Edinburgh, and Vienna, as of 1797 almost until the end of his life, he was a professor at the Wilno universities. It was also in Wilno that he passed away on 29 April 1838. In compliance with his last will he was buried in the village of Horodniki, within the Bołtup Parish (he actually owned both localities), next to his earlier-deceased wife Konstancja. The tomb commemorating both parents was founded by their son Józef. The monument of white Italian marbles (Carrara) or Greek ones (Dionysos) is shaped as a large urn, almost 1.5 metres high, placed on a pedestal resembling a stocky square pillar (55-cm-long side), which almost equals the urn in height; the pillar itself stands on a several-step plinth. The urn and the pillar are approximately equally wide. The whole work is about 350 cm high, this including the marble cross crowning the urn. The facility is surrounded with a fence of metal bars (Fig.1). Three inscriptions and a coat of arms were hewn in the pillar shaft, the front inscription reading: ‘Jędrzey Śniadecki / URO. 30 LISTO.1768 / + 29. KWJET. 1838’[Jędrzey Śniadecki/ BORN 30 NOV. 1768/ + 29 April 1838]. The right side featured the Leliwa coat of arms on a shield encircled by a laurel wreath. The left side bore the inscription reading: ‘Ku wieczney pamięci / Drogich Rodzicow /przywiązany / Syn / WZNIOSŁ TEN POMNIK / R. 1839 [In everlasting memory/ of my Beloved Parents/ fond/ Son/ RAISED THIS MONUMENT/ 1839]. The back side featured the following inscription: ‘Konstancya / z Mikułowskich / Śniadecka / + 2 WRZES. 1830’ [Konstancyja/ née Mikulowski/ Śniadecka/ + 2 Sept. 1830].The two-partite mass of the tomb seems a well-balanced composition in which both the pedestal and the urn harmoniously coincide. The monument is decorated with bas-relief motifs typical of sepulchral art (winged hourglasses, poppy heads, two crossed torches, ouroboroses, and additionally an unclear butterfly or bee), as well as with a pair of attributes, emphasized due to their size and position (winged rod of Asclepius: doctors’ emblem, and a chemist’s lab). Undoubtedly, both the rod and the lab, shown on the front and back walls of the urn respectively, are the dominant motifs here (Figs. 2-3). The rod is interconnected with the laurel wreath in an original way, making the wreath look as if winged. The chemist’s lab is composed within a tondo, outlined with an ouroboros: a bookcase, a stove with retorts, a barrel-shaped tank, a low cupboard with a spherical vessel on it are all clearly visible. The applied motif of an urn in a tomb was nothing genuine in Neo-Classicism and before. The urn was often accompanied by a statue of a female mourner, with the urn being covered with a pall. In the discussed tomb these elements are missing, most likely in order to allow a better exposition of the attributes of the deceased. Moreover, for this very reason the urn was given a unique shape, since it featured an angular bowl. This solution should be regarded as rather uncommon. The analysis of the monument’s artistic form and the relations of the inscriptions with the representations above them, allows to suppose that originally the tomb was to be dedicated to one person only: the learned man Jędrzej Śniadecki. Jędrzej Śniadecki’s iconography, if limited only to sculpture work, was in majority created after the scientist’s death. It included a small monument (67 cm high) from 1874-75 by Ludwik Kucharzewski, meant for the congress hall of the Medical Society at 9 Niecała Street, Warsaw (Fig. 5). The scientist was presented as a professor giving a lecture, wearing a gown, and bareheaded.To conclude these considerations it is worth recalling a monument of yet another scientist: Father Krzysztof Kluk (1739-96) in Ciechanowiec, executed in sandstone by Jakub Tatarkiewicz in 1847, and unveiled a year later (Fig. 6). Kluk was an illustrious botanist and biologist; in 1787, he was conferred a PhD degree in liberal sciences and philosophy at the Main School. The statue on a high cuboid plinth presents the scientist standing, wearing a gown over a cassock, a book in his left hand, a plant (forged in metal) in his right hand: the one he identified and named as scabiosa inflexa. The plinth features three bas-reliefs related to Kluk’s research with the scenes of individuals working: peasants, gardeners, fishermen, and beekeepers; miners, and steelworkers. In the case of Śniadecki’s statute from 1874-75, the identification of the person and of their job is obvious. It is different when the monument, and particularly the sepulchral one, is devoid of the deceased’s effigy. In their case, only the inscription and the coat of arms allow to deduce who the tomb was raised to commemorate. Furthermore, inscriptions can at times be so concise that only appropriate images point out to who the deceased was. It is worth recalling here e.g. the tombstone of Jan Zamoyski in the Zamość Collegiate Church (after 1606, before 1619), featuring a seal and baton, namely the insignia of the chancellor and grand crown hetman with a coat of arms and an inscription merely with the first name, family name, and death date (Fig. 7). In such pieces of sepulchral art we are dealing with the phenomenon of a peculiar framework topic: the monument’s ideological programme is in a way universal, as it is appropriate for many representatives of the same ‘status’, namely the same profession, office, exerted function, etc. ‘Status’ programmes were implemented in various ways: (1) indirect, as if allusive, and (2) ‘direct’. Among type (1), mention has to be made of the epitaph of the inn keeper Georg Jeschke (d. 1576) in St Elisabeth Church in Wrocław, showing Abraham being visited by three men. Type (2) is extensive, including two subtypes: (A) person at work, and (B) attributes of the job or office, etc. Subtype (A) is represented e.g. by the epitaph of Philippus Callimachus (Veit Stoss, ca. 1502-3, Kraków, Dominican Church), or the tomb of Archdeacon Piotr Gebauer, d. 1646 (Wrocław Cathedral). Callimachus, the secretary of King John I Albert, is portrayed as a vir politicus who, in his study, is checking a newly prepared document of national importance (Fig. 8). Gebauer, in his turn, is shown speaking from the pulpit, since he was a Cathedral preacher for 15 years (Fig. 9). Subtype (B) contains several genres. In the simplest, and most common one, the issue boils down to the costume and the used accessories, which applies both to clergymen and knights (later the military). In another genre we deal with instruments demonstrated by their owners, as e.g. in the tombstone of the blacksmith Nitsch (d, 1625) in Leszno, featuring a standing craftsman, holding a hammer in his right and a pair of pincers in his left hand (Fig. 10). The next genre features merely the attributes, which can be observed not only in the afore-mentioned tombs of Śniadecki or Zamoyski, but also contemporarily. This is testified to by the tomb of the illustrious filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski (d. 1996) at the Old Powązki Cemetery (Krzysztof M. Bednarski, 1997), with two director’s hands framing up a shot (Fig. 11). At times, the attribute does not necessarily define the deceased’s function, but it can testify to his or her oeuvre, accomplishments, etc. The latter is the case of an authentic artillery gun at the Powązki Cemetery placed on the tomb of Jędrzej Węgłowski vel Węglowski (1789-1861), Artillery Major-General of the Russian army, inventor of so-called Węgłowski gun towing trailer (Fig. 12). On other occasions the attribute may not necessarily refer only to the deceased’s profession, but also to an event from his or her biography. To illustrate this variant it is enough to recall an airscrew frequently found on 20th-century tombs, attached to them, occasionally to point out to the pilot’s tragic death. In that case we have to do with an intermediary form between status and biographical programmes that are discussed below. Another genre includes such tombs in which attributes (most frequently books) constitute an element completing the image of the deceased. This complement can either be symbolic or specific. A big-sized, medium, or a small book can either suggest the deceased to have been a clergyman or a pious faithful, the latter most often with respect to a woman. On another occasion, it could have served to point out to the deceased having been a humanist, a man of learning, which has been used to-date in different branches of art, and not only in epitaphs or tombs. It is sometimes the case that the presented book was written by the deceased. Biographical programmes are less elaborate, and also much rarer. Reference to the deceased’s first name or the meaning of their family name can be come across in Protestant epitaphs. For example, in the Wrocław Church of St Elizabeth the epitaph of Józef (Joseph) Rindfleisch (after 1599) features the Biblical scene of Joseph welcoming Jacob with his sons, while that of Fryderyk Scheffer (d. 1607) featured Christ the Good Shepherd (in German, Schäfer means a shepherd). However, in Polish sepulchral and epitaph art there is one unique work showing the cause of the death. In the 1643 epitaph of Jerzy Rudomina and his eight companions who perished in the 1621 battle of Chocim, nine kneeling…beheaded knights were shown (Nowogródek Parish Church; Fig. 13). Other personal contents can be found in monuments from e.g. the turn of the 20th century. In some cases, there are specific dogs lying down on guard: Pluto and Nero guarding the tomb of Józef Iwanowicz (d. 1877) at the Łyczakowski Cemetery in Lwów (Paweł Eutele), or As keeping guard for Adolf Dygasiński (d. 1902) at Warsaw’s Powązki (Czesław Makowski).The above-presented typology of ideological programmes of tombs and epitaphs merely signals the question. It will, however, fulfil its goal if it succeeds to encourage further thorough studies, these also taking into consideration the European context.Jędrzej Śniadecki’s Tomb at Horodniki n. Oszmiana (1839). Questions Related to the Ideological ProgrammeIn the paper, an attempt is made to find the answer to whether there exists, and if so, how is it reflected, the connection between a piece a sepulchral art and the deceased. The starting point for the analysis, limited to Polish examples only, was found in the tomb described in the title, preserved at a country cemetery at Horodniki (from 1945 Grodno Province, Belarus). Jędrzej Śniadecki, an illustrious scientist: a chemist, doctor, biologist, and philosopher, was born in 1768. Following his studies in Kraków, Padua, Edinburgh, and Vienna, as of 1797 almost until the end of his life, he was a professor at the Wilno universities. It was also in Wilno that he passed away on 29 April 1838. In compliance with his last will he was buried in the village of Horodniki, within the Bołtup Parish (he actually owned both localities), next to his earlier-deceased wife Konstancja. The tomb commemorating both parents was founded by their son Józef. The monument of white Italian marbles (Carrara) or Greek ones (Dionysos) is shaped as a large urn, almost 1.5 metres high, placed on a pedestal resembling a stocky square pillar (55-cm-long side), which almost equals the urn in height; the pillar itself stands on a several-step plinth. The urn and the pillar are approximately equally wide. The whole work is about 350 cm high, this including the marble cross crowning the urn. The facility is surrounded with a fence of metal bars (Fig.1). Three inscriptions and a coat of arms were hewn in the pillar shaft, the front inscription reading: ‘Jędrzey Śniadecki / URO. 30 LISTO.1768 / + 29. KWJET. 1838’[Jędrzey Śniadecki/ BORN 30 NOV. 1768/ + 29 April 1838]. The right side featured the Leliwa coat of arms on a shield encircled by a laurel wreath. The left side bore the inscription reading: ‘Ku wieczney pamięci / Drogich Rodzicow /przywiązany / Syn / WZNIOSŁ TEN POMNIK / R. 1839 [In everlasting memory/ of my Beloved Parents/ fond/ Son/ RAISED THIS MONUMENT/ 1839]. The back side featured the following inscription: ‘Konstancya / z Mikułowskich / Śniadecka / + 2 WRZES. 1830’ [Konstancyja/ née Mikulowski/ Śniadecka/ + 2 Sept. 1830].The two-partite mass of the tomb seems a well-balanced composition in which both the pedestal and the urn harmoniously coincide. The monument is decorated with bas-relief motifs typical of sepulchral art (winged hourglasses, poppy heads, two crossed torches, ouroboroses, and additionally an unclear butterfly or bee), as well as with a pair of attributes, emphasized due to their size and position (winged rod of Asclepius: doctors’ emblem, and a chemist’s lab). Undoubtedly, both the rod and the lab, shown on the front and back walls of the urn respectively, are the dominant motifs here (Figs. 2-3). The rod is interconnected with the laurel wreath in an original way, making the wreath look as if winged. The chemist’s lab is composed within a tondo, outlined with an ouroboros: a bookcase, a stove with retorts, a barrel-shaped tank, a low cupboard with a spherical vessel on it are all clearly visible. The applied motif of an urn in a tomb was nothing genuine in Neo-Classicism and before. The urn was often accompanied by a statue of a female mourner, with the urn being covered with a pall. In the discussed tomb these elements are missing, most likely in order to allow a better exposition of the attributes of the deceased. Moreover, for this very reason the urn was given a unique shape, since it featured an angular bowl. This solution should be regarded as rather uncommon. The analysis of the monument’s artistic form and the relations of the inscriptions with the representations above them, allows to suppose that originally the tomb was to be dedicated to one person only: the learned man Jędrzej Śniadecki. Jędrzej Śniadecki’s iconography, if limited only to sculpture work, was in majority created after the scientist’s death. It included a small monument (67 cm high) from 1874-75 by Ludwik Kucharzewski, meant for the congress hall of the Medical Society at 9 Niecała Street, Warsaw (Fig. 5). The scientist was presented as a professor giving a lecture, wearing a gown, and bareheaded.To conclude these considerations it is worth recalling a monument of yet another scientist: Father Krzysztof Kluk (1739-96) in Ciechanowiec, executed in sandstone by Jakub Tatarkiewicz in 1847, and unveiled a year later (Fig. 6). Kluk was an illustrious botanist and biologist; in 1787, he was conferred a PhD degree in liberal sciences and philosophy at the Main School. The statue on a high cuboid plinth presents the scientist standing, wearing a gown over a cassock, a book in his left hand, a plant (forged in metal) in his right hand: the one he identified and named as scabiosa inflexa. The plinth features three bas-reliefs related to Kluk’s research with the scenes of individuals working: peasants, gardeners, fishermen, and beekeepers; miners, and steelworkers. In the case of Śniadecki’s statute from 1874-75, the identification of the person and of their job is obvious. It is different when the monument, and particularly the sepulchral one, is devoid of the deceased’s effigy. In their case, only the inscription and the coat of arms allow to deduce who the tomb was raised to commemorate. Furthermore, inscriptions can at times be so concise that only appropriate images point out to who the deceased was. It is worth recalling here e.g. the tombstone of Jan Zamoyski in the Zamość Collegiate Church (after 1606, before 1619), featuring a seal and baton, namely the insignia of the chancellor and grand crown hetman with a coat of arms and an inscription merely with the first name, family name, and death date (Fig. 7). In such pieces of sepulchral art we are dealing with the phenomenon of a peculiar framework topic: the monument’s ideological programme is in a way universal, as it is appropriate for many representatives of the same ‘status’, namely the same profession, office, exerted function, etc. ‘Status’ programmes were implemented in various ways: (1) indirect, as if allusive, and (2) ‘direct’. Among type (1), mention has to be made of the epitaph of the inn keeper Georg Jeschke (d. 1576) in St Elisabeth Church in Wrocław, showing Abraham being visited by three men. Type (2) is extensive, including two subtypes: (A) person at work, and (B) attributes of the job or office, etc. Subtype (A) is represented e.g. by the epitaph of Philippus Callimachus (Veit Stoss, ca. 1502-3, Kraków, Dominican Church), or the tomb of Archdeacon Piotr Gebauer, d. 1646 (Wrocław Cathedral). Callimachus, the secretary of King John I Albert, is portrayed as a vir politicus who, in his study, is checking a newly prepared document of national importance (Fig. 8). Gebauer, in his turn, is shown speaking from the pulpit, since he was a Cathedral preacher for 15 years (Fig. 9). Subtype (B) contains several genres. In the simplest, and most common one, the issue boils down to the costume and the used accessories, which applies both to clergymen and knights (later the military). In another genre we deal with instruments demonstrated by their owners, as e.g. in the tombstone of the blacksmith Nitsch (d, 1625) in Leszno, featuring a standing craftsman, holding a hammer in his right and a pair of pincers in his left hand (Fig. 10). The next genre features merely the attributes, which can be observed not only in the afore-mentioned tombs of Śniadecki or Zamoyski, but also contemporarily. This is testified to by the tomb of the illustrious filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski (d. 1996) at the Old Powązki Cemetery (Krzysztof M. Bednarski, 1997), with two director’s hands framing up a shot (Fig. 11). At times, the attribute does not necessarily define the deceased’s function, but it can testify to his or her oeuvre, accomplishments, etc. The latter is the case of an authentic artillery gun at the Powązki Cemetery placed on the tomb of Jędrzej Węgłowski vel Węglowski (1789-1861), Artillery Major-General of the Russian army, inventor of so-called Węgłowski gun towing trailer (Fig. 12). On other occasions the attribute may not necessarily refer only to the deceased’s profession, but also to an event from his or her biography. To illustrate this variant it is enough to recall an airscrew frequently found on 20th-century tombs, attached to them, occasionally to point out to the pilot’s tragic death. In that case we have to do with an intermediary form between status and biographical programmes that are discussed below. Another genre includes such tombs in which attributes (most frequently books) constitute an element completing the image of the deceased. This complement can either be symbolic or specific. A big-sized, medium, or a small book can either suggest the deceased to have been a clergyman or a pious faithful, the latter most often with respect to a woman. On another occasion, it could have served to point out to the deceased having been a humanist, a man of learning, which has been used to-date in different branches of art, and not only in epitaphs or tombs. It is sometimes the case that the presented book was written by the deceased. Biographical programmes are less elaborate, and also much rarer. Reference to the deceased’s first name or the meaning of their family name can be come across in Protestant epitaphs. For example, in the Wrocław Church of St Elizabeth the epitaph of Józef (Joseph) Rindfleisch (after 1599) features the Biblical scene of Joseph welcoming Jacob with his sons, while that of Fryderyk Scheffer (d. 1607) featured Christ the Good Shepherd (in German, Schäfer means a shepherd). However, in Polish sepulchral and epitaph art there is one unique work showing the cause of the death. In the 1643 epitaph of Jerzy Rudomina and his eight companions who perished in the 1621 battle of Chocim, nine kneeling…beheaded knights were shown (Nowogródek Parish Church; Fig. 13). Other personal contents can be found in monuments from e.g. the turn of the 20th century. In some cases, there are specific dogs lying down on guard: Pluto and Nero guarding the tomb of Józef Iwanowicz (d. 1877) at the Łyczakowski Cemetery in Lwów (Paweł Eutele), or As keeping guard for Adolf Dygasiński (d. 1902) at Warsaw’s Powązki (Czesław Makowski).The above-presented typology of ideological programmes of tombs and epitaphs merely signals the question. It will, however, fulfil its goal if it succeeds to encourage further thorough studies, these also taking into consideration the European context.
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Portrait of the Commander of a Defeated Army: Remarks on the Iconography of General Józef Dwernicki This portrait, which occupies an important place in the iconography of General Józef Dwernicki (1779–1857), was painted, most probably in 1832 in Paris, by Jean François Gigoux, a highly respected artist of the period. In time, the picture made its way to the Louvre. The work represents a particular portrait type which glorifies the commander of a defeated army, an iconographic presentation defined in Polish art by the art historian Andrzej Ryszkiewicz, a consummate expert on the art of portraiture. The use of this presentation formula was fully justified, as Dwernicki was one of the officers who led the Polish drive for independence, the November Uprising against Russia, which was duly suppressed in 1831. In the Polish collective memory, however, the general remained first and foremost the architect of the military victory at Stoczek. Gigoux’s painting was almost unknown in Poland. Nevertheless, it did influence, primarily in formal terms, the development of Dwernicki’s iconography. References to it abound in a group of his representations, which includes paintings, prints, and even several sculptures. The research into old Polish collections, now held in Lviv, Ukraine, has revealed a previously unknown portrait of General Dwernicki. This is a second version of Gigoux’s portrait, signed by the painter, like the Louvre picture. The French artist must have thought very highly this work, since he kept the picture in his private collection. The version owned by Dwernicki reached Lwów together with the general, who settled there upon his return from forced emigration in 1848. In due course, it ended up in the Historical Museum of the City of Lwów, which was transformed into Lviv Historical Museum in 1940.
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Iconography of Wall Painting in Greater Poland Wooden Churches in the Post-Partition Period The cultural landscape of Greater Poland is co-created by numerous examples of sacral wooden architecture. There are 290 historic wooden churches, some dozens of which still date back to the 15th – 17th century. In 99 of them historic wall decoration has been preserved; fifty-three of them are complexes from the partition periods. The basis for the iconography analysis is to be found in 27 sets of paintings containing figural motifs (as well as emblematic and symbolic ones) preserved almost exclusively in rural Catholic churches. The remaining, merely ornamental furnishing of sacral interiors is most frequently made up of pattern-based compositions of decorative character, devoid of any ideological message. Two oldest decorations with figural motifs date back to the early 19th century. In 19 churches paintings from 1890-1915 have been preserved. Chronologically varied programmes of wall paintings of the post-partition period differ from the older ones (16th – 18th c.) by a clearly smaller number of figural motifs. Earlier typically elaborate narrative cycles had disappeared. The iconographic expression of painterly decoration generally boils down to one or several single autonomized representations. In those reduced figural programmes a slow process of breaking with the traditional image conventions, present until the end of the 3rd quarter of the 19th century is revealed. Local artists, still trained in the guild system, when choosing iconographic motifs referred to the repertory of models that was well known to them. In many a case the permanence of the traditional iconographic schemes directly resulted from the faithfulness to the regulations of the Canonical Law describing presentations, particularly those of dogmatic character, in a detailed way. In the last quarter of the 19th century in the iconographic programmes of painterly wall decorations of the Greater Poland Province clearer symptoms of the impact of the programme of the religious life renewal proclaimed by the Holy See could be observed, in the sphere of art emphasizing faithfulness to tradition, as well as compliance with the dogmas and the canonical regulations. The relations between the theory of church art and the artistic praxis visible in the wooden churches’ wall decoration coincided with a peculiar ‘renaissance’ of figurative murals in brick churches of Greater Poland. The changes were occurring with the participation of the already new generation of painters, graduates from artistic schools, or at least drawing classes, familiar with the history of art, and well acquainted with a new history domain, mainly iconography. The artists, including those active in wooden churches, would derive from the rich repertory of reproductions of paintings by Raphael, Murillo, or Titian. Another popular oeuvre for the purpose was that of Friedrich Overbeck. The iconographic programmes of wooden churches, modest in the application of figural motifs, reflected predominantly Marian devotion, re-promoted with the 1854 proclamation of the Immaculate Conception dogma. The devotion was demonstrated mainly in the traditional presentations of the Virgin and Child, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, and Our Lady of the Rosary. Marian motifs, dominating in the painterly wall decorations actually marginalized Christological iconography. In the preserved resources not even a single Passion presentation has survived. Next to Marian motifs, a permanent element of iconographic programmes could be found in single effigies of saints. These most frequently included the Evangelists embodying the revealed foundations of the faith, but also testifying to the compliance of the iconographic contents that accompanied them with the Church’s teaching. It was only in the late 19th century that gradually more images of Polish saints appeared in the iconographic programmes of wall painting. This was the period that coincided with more intensified activity of Polish Church promoting the cult of native saints. Effigies of Polish saints were to make the faithful realize the Christian roots of the national identity. The patriotic message was to promptly manifest itself in the iconographic programmes in brick churches of Greater Poland in the form of assemblies of Polish saints serving as ‘advocates of the nation in bondage’, or in the paintings of the intervention of Our Lady at Poland’s breakthrough historic moments. The surviving wall paintings in wooden churches lack this ‘patriotic’ literality. There, more commonly only single effigies of Polish saints were presented.Despite the proclaimed slogans of the revival of religious art, the limitation of figural motifs for the sake of pattern-based ornamental compositions of decorative character, typical of wall decorations in the post-partition period, eventually resulted in increasing shallowness of the ideological iconographic programmes. The issue was raised by Church authorities. These, however, had only a limited influence on the church interior painterly décor, as this remained conditioned by the financial capacities of the congregation; in the post-partition period it was almost exclusively them who were burdened with the church running costs. The sources show that rural parishes, generally with more modest financing for church renovation, limited their expenses on the painterly décor, showing preference for cheaper pattern-based decoration, and not the more expensive figurative presentations.
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Zoomorphe Friese auf dem Hochschloss der Marienburg. Auf in den Friesen im Äußeren der Südseite der Marienburger Schlosskapelle sowie in den Nischen der „Goldene Pforte” genannten Portalvorhalle dieser Kapelle verwendeten, glasierten Backsteinen (ca. 17 × 14 × ca. 8 cm) finden sich ausdrucksstarke Gestalten eines Greifen, eines Hirsches, eines Löwen sowie eines Drachen, die im flachen Relief dargestellt werden (Abb. 1-15). Die Friese entstanden während der ersten Bauphase des Nordflügels des Konventshauses, die in das letzte Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts fällt. Heute bestehen sie aus 109 (ursprünglich 110) Einzelbildern, wovon es sich bei 61 um Originale aus dem 13. Jahrhundert handelt. Die Übrigen wurden 1883 als Kopien beschädigter Originale eingesetzt (Anm. 5). Die Plazierung der Originalbilder zeigt die Abb. 4.Die Forschung in Bezug auf diese Friese setzte sich bis dahin hauptsächlich mit den Frage nach der Datierung, den künstlerischen Vorbildern sowie der Aussage dieser Darstellungen auseinander. Betont wurden die Seltenheit derartiger zoomorpher Friese in der Backsteinarchitektur des 13. Jahrhunderts, die feine Ausarbeitung der Marienburger Reliefs sowie die Differenzen hinsichtlich der Ausdruckskraft der Marienburger Löwendarstellung im Vergleich zu einer ähnlichen Darstellung auf einem aus der Komtursburg in Brandenburg am Frischen Haff stammenden Backstein (Anm. 16-25). In der Anfangszeit der Baukunst in Preußen spielten aus der Mark Brandenburg und aus Mecklenburg stammende Architekten und Ziegelbrenner eine wesentliche Rolle. Als den Marienburger Darstellungen typologisch am nächsten stehende und ungefähr zu gleicher Zeit entstandene Dekorationen dieser Art verwies man auf Friese an den mecklenburgischen Kirchen zu Steffenshagen und Boitin (Anm. 35-36, 61-65). Bogna Jakubowska beschäftigte sich mit den Marienburger Friesen besonders ausführlich (Anm. 42). Sie betonte, dass die überstilisierten Darstellungen der Friese in stilistisch-formaler Hinsicht kaum den anderen Details der Goldenen Pforte ähneln und auch nach keinerlei erkennbarer Regel angeordnet sind. Den am Hals des Greifen angehängten, mit einem Kreuz versehenen Schild wollte sie als ein apotropäisches Zeichen verstehen. Den Greif selbst interpretierte sie hinsichtlich seiner symbolischen Bedeutung indessen nicht. Dazu äußerte sich mehrfach Kazimierz Pospieszny (Anm. 30, 45, 50). Zunächst bezeichnete er das phantastische Tierwesen als Abbild „der Sünde, also des Bösen, das in diesem Falle auf den Ordensbrüdern lastet“. Weiter ist er der Meinung, dass die zoomorphen Reliefs für das allgemein zu begreifende Böse stehen, also die heidnische Welt der Prußen und der Litauer. Den apotropäischen Sinn des Marienburger Greifen mit dem Schild stellte er in Frage und wollte ihn im Zusammenhang mit anderen, „weit verbreiteten Darstellungen auf den Mauern der Deutschordensburgen, die den Kampf (die Mission) des Ordens in Preußen abbildeten“, sehen. Zuletzt beschäftigte sich mit dem Thema wiederum Bogna Jakubowska, die die in den Friesen gezeigten Tierwesen samt den Darstellungen diverser Fabelwesen in den Vorhallennischen, in den Archivolten und in den Kapitellzonen des Portals betrachtete (Anm. 2, 53). Ihrer Meinung nach repräsentieren sie alle verschiedene negative Kräfte. Den Greif mit dem an seinen Hals angebundenem Schild will sie als das vom Orden gezähmte und durch seine Hand der Vernichtung anheimfallende Böse sehen. Bei den Darstellungen auf den Friesen handelt es sich nach ihrer Auffassung um „eine Warnung vor dem Jüngsten Tag“.Hinsichtlich der Identifizierung der auf den Marienburger Friesen jeweils mehrfach dargestellten Tierwesen ist man sich in der Forschung einig. So gibt es keine Zweifel, dass es sich bei einem der Bilder um den Hirsch handelt (Abb. 9). Überwiegend eindeutig werden auch der geflügelte Drache (Abb. 11) und der (mähnenlose) Löwe (Abb. 10, 12) identifiziert. Eine mit diesem Merkmal ausgestattete Darstellung des Löwen deutet darauf hin, dass es sich hier wohl eher um das Abbild einer Löwin, eines Leoparden oder des Vertreters einer besonders aggressiver Löwenrasse handelt, deren Merkmal eben das Fehlen der Mähne ist (Anm. 75-76). Am schwierigsten zu erklären ist indessen das phantastische Tierwesen, das meist als „Greif“ bezeichnet wird (Abb. 8, 13, 25). Der Greif wird üblicherweise als ein geflügeltes Hybridwesen mit dem Leib eines Löwen und einem Adlerprotom dargestellt (Anm. 85). Das in Marienburg von rechts nach links schreitende, flügellose, schlanke Fabeltier weist einen Vogelkopf, den Leib eines Vierbeiners sowie einen zotteligen Schweif auf, der eher dem Schwanz eines Pferdes als dem eines Löwen ähnelt (Abb. 8, 13, 25). Seine vorderen Beine/Pfoten enden mit überdimensionalen Vogelkrallen, während sich die Hinterbeine auf Pferdehufen stützen, was eher unüblich ist (Anm. 86). Dieses Merkmal sowie die ebenfalls bei einem Greif sonderbare Form des Schweifs deuten darauf hin, dass es sich hier um eine seltene, flügellose Art des Hippogryphen handelt, die in Folge der Verbindung von Greifen und Stuten entstand (Anm. 87). Diese ungewöhnliche Situation beschreibt Vergil als Beispiel für unnatürliche oder unmögliche Vorkommnisse und Ausdruck unangebrachter Neigungen oder Haltungen (Anm. 88). Der Kopf des Wesens sitzt auf einem langen „Schwanenhals“ und zeichnet sich durch einen recht langen, geraden Schnabel, spitze Ohren und ein hervorstehendes, hornartiges Stirngebilde aus, das etwas größer als die Ohren ist (Anm. 89). Die bisherige Forschung übersah es gänzlich, dass hinter dem langen Hals des Wesens in seinem oberen Abschnitt offenbar ein Pfeil dargestellt wurde, oder das Geschoss gar den Hals durchbohrt (Abb. 19, 24, 25). Der Pfeil wird parallel zum Schnabel des Hippogryphen dargestellt, ohne Befiederung und mit einer linsenförmigen Blattspitze, die sich zwischen dem linken Ohr des Tierwesens und dem mit einer Schildfessel an seinen Hals angebundenen, dreieckigen, über seinem Rücken beinahe parallel schwebenden Kreuzschild befindet. Die mangelhafte Geradlinigkeit beider Abschnitte des den Hals durchbohrenden Pfeils (links und rechts des Halses) ergibt sich offenbar aus der Notwendigkeit, dieses Element in das mit anderen Details bereits recht volles Bild einzupassen. Sie deutet wohl kaum einen Bruch des Geschosses an. Die fehlende Befiederung führt wiederum zu der Überlegung, ob es sich hier tatsächlich um einen (unvollständigen) Pfeil oder eher um eine kurze Lanze handelt, sofern durch eine solche Darstellungsweise keine speziellen symbolischen Inhalte angedeutet werden sollten.Aus dem Schnabel des Mischwesens treten Feuerzungen, die eine symmetrische Entsprechung für drei wellenförmige Streifen über seinem Schweif bilden. Diese Streifen sollen wohl auf die Bewegung des Tieres hinweisen, die ein Feuer oder eine Art Druckwelle nach sich zieht. Obwohl sich der Marienburger Hippogryph von der im Mittelalter üblichen Darstellungsweise eines Greifwesens durch mehrere Details unterscheidet (Flügellosigkeit, das „Stirnhorn“, Hufe), ist er zu jenen Wunderwesen zu zählen, die für ihr feindliches Verhältnis zu Pferd und Mensch, aber auch als Wächter von Gold und Smaragden des Kaukasus und Skythiens bekannt waren. Nach im hohen Mittelalter verbreiteter Meinung waren die Einwohner Skythiens, des weiten Landes östlich der germanischen Siedlungsgebiete, Heiden, die den Versuchen ihrer Christianisierung widerstanden. Smaragde standen symbolisch für den christlichen Glauben, während die den Zugang zu den wahren Schätzen verwehrenden und damit den Fortschritten der Evangelisierung feindlich gegenüberstehenden Greife als satanische Wesen galten (Anm. 94-96). Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810-877) vertrat indes die Meinung, dass den Greifen die Tugend der Keuschheit (castitas) eigen war (Anm. 97). Im 13. Jahrhundert brachten die in den Schilden geführten Zeichen die rechtliche Stellung des Ritters zum Ausdruck; meist verwiesen sie auf sein Lehnsverhältnis. Die Schilde wurden von den Kriegern üblicherweise vor sich hergetragen. Mutmaßlich wurden die Schilde der in Gefangenschaft Geratenen ebenfalls an ihrem Hals von vorne angehängt (Anm. 107). In drei Situationen legten die Träger jedoch ihre Schilde, durch eine Schildfessel abgesichert, auf den Rücken: beim Marschieren, bei der Flucht und beim Nahkampf (Anm. 108). Somit kann der Marienburger Hippogryph mitnichten als Abbild des vom Orden besiegten Bösen gelten. Auf die positive Symbolik des kämpferischen Fabelwesens weisen: das auf seinem Schild angebrachte Kreuzzeichen, die Position des Schildes, der mit Hilfe einer Schildfessel an seinem Hals befestigt über seinem Rücken schwebt, sein Habitus sowie der Bezug zu den anderen Tierwesen. Der hier dargestellte, feuerspeiende, flügellose Hybrid, der durch das wichtigste Symbol der Christenheit und des Deutschen Ordens als ein vollendeter Kreuzritter identifiziert wird, attackiert schwungvoll einen Drachen oder – seltener – einen Löwen (Abb. 4, 14, 28), die beide für Satan stehen. Eine solche Interpretation dieser Darstellung bestätigen auch die Symbolik und die Funktion der hier gezeigten Waffen. Laut Peter von Dusburg handelt es sich beim Schild auf jeden Fall um die wichtigste und zuverlässigste Waffe im Kampf gegen den schrecklichsten Feind – Satan, die symbolisch für die Glaubensstärke steht. Eine andere Bedeutung hingegen hat der Pfeil:„Der Pfeil versinnbildlicht die Keuschheit. […] Wie ferner der Pfeil mit zwei Federn fliegt wie ein Vogel und dem Feind schnellen Tod bringt, so gebraucht auch die Keuschheit zwei Federn, um ihren alten Feind zu überwinden, nämlich die Erneuerung des alten Lebens und den Nutzen der Erneuerung. Von diesen beiden Federn spricht Isaias: Die auf den Herren hoffen, werden ihre leibliche Kraft in geistige verwandeln, sie werden Federn bekommen wie der Adler (Is 40, 31); wenn der sich erneuern will, dann legt er die alte Federn ab und bekommt neue.“ In diesem Zusammenhang scheint selbstverständlich, dass das flügellose Marienburger Mischwesen eine Verwandlung erlebt, deren Zweck darin lag, das geistige Leben der bereits im Kampfe erfahrener Ritter zu vervollkommnen. Das Fehlen der Befiederung am verbogenen (?) Pfeil hinter dem Hals des Hippogryphs weist möglicherweise auf irgendwelche Vergehen der Ritterbrüder beim Erfüllen ihrer durch die Ordensregel bestimmten Aufgaben im zu christianisierenden Preußen hin. Weniger wahrscheinlich erscheint, dass darin eine Andeutung auf gewisse, heute nicht mehr bekannte Schwierigkeiten in der Tätigkeit des aus diesem Grunde von Zantir nach Marienburg 1280 verlegten Deutschordenskonvents enthalten ist (Anm. 117).Sollte indessen der den Hals des Tierwesens durchbohrende Pfeil tatsächlich für die Keuschheit stehen, so sei noch an eine andere Passage aus dem Werk des Chronisten erinnert:„Das Fleisch des keuschen Menschen kann also mit Job sagen: Die Pfeile des Herren stecken in mir; ihr Zorn trinkt meinen unkeuschen Geist aus (Job 6, 4). Wie groß und welcher Art der Zorn der Keuschheit gegen die Ausschweifung sei, weiß niemand, der ihn nicht erfahren hat.“ Der im Hals des Greifen steckende, beschädigte Pfeil, verweist möglicherweise auf ein schweres Vergehen gegenüber der Ordensregel, dessen sich die durch das Wesen symbolisch dargestellten Ordensritter schuldig gemacht haben. Die Keuschheit – also sexuelle Zurückhaltung – zählte nämlich neben der Besitzlosigkeit und des Gehorsams zu den wichtigsten Tugenden, welchen die Ordensmitglieder zu genügen hatten. Zwecks Veranschaulichung bemüht hier Peter von Dusburg das Beispiel des Königsberger Komturs Bertold von Brühaven (Amtszeit 1289-1301) (Anm. 119). Wegen der fehlenden Befiederung könnte das Geschoss auch als ein kurzer Speer interpretiert werden, doch scheint dies nicht überzeugend, da seine Länge in etwa der Höhe der von der Reiterei genutzten Schilde entspricht (ca. 50 oder sogar ca. 70-80 cm) (Anm. 121). Über diese Waffe schrieb Peter von Dusburg:„Der gute Speer bedeutet den rechten Vorsatz nach der Lehre des Apostels: Alles, was ihr tut mit Worten und Werken, das tut im Namen des Herrn (Kol 3, 17) und Ob ihr esst, trinkt oder etwas anderes tut, alles tut zur Ehre Gottes (1 Kor 10, 31). Dieser Speer bestimmt Wert oder Unwert eines jeden Werkes, weil aus einem bösen Vorsatz niemals ein gutes Werk hervorgeht und umgekehrt.“ Unabhängig davon, wie die Waffe und ihre Position identifiziert werden (beschädigter Pfeil oder Speer hinter dem Hals oder den Hals des flügellosen Hippogryphs durchbohrend, des Fabelwesens, das symbolisch für einen eine geistige Wandlung durchmachenden Deutschordensritter steht), zeigt sich, dass das Marienburger Relief mehrere didaktisch-moralische Inhalte in sich birgt, die heute – angesichts seiner Größe, der Herstellungstechnik sowie der unzureichenden Kenntnisse über die historische Situation in Preußen gegen Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts - nur schwer zu lesen sind. Das Reliefbild war mutmaßlich als Belehrung gedacht und hatte wohl kaum apotropäische Bedeutung. Um den Sinn der tierischen Darstellungen in den Marienburger Friesen zu deuten, müssen sie in einen Bezug zueinander gebracht werden. Der Hirsch steht u. a. für eine zu Gott strebende Seele (Ps 42 [41],2), aber auch für die Taufe. Die Taufe wird bekanntlich durch die Zahl 8 symbolisiert (Anm. 69) und so viele Sprossen zählt auch das sorgfältig dargestellte Prachtgeweih des Achtenders. Die fast gleichen Löwenbilder der Friese der Marienburg und der Komtursburg Brandenburg zeigen eine spezielle Löwenart, deren symbolische Bedeutung mehrdeutig ist (Anm. 82). So verstand sie auch Peter von Dusburg (Anm. 83). Sollten wir indessen den mähnenlosen Löwen als Leoparden identifizieren, so ruft er als solcher ausschließlich negative Konnotationen hervor. Der Drache steht in religiöser Auslegung eindeutig für das Böse, genauso wie der Hirsch für das Gute. Die sich in entgegengesetzte Richtung bewegenden Tierwesen deuten eine Konfrontation des Guten und des Bösen an (der Hirsch und der Hippogryph schreiten von rechts nach links, der Drache und der Löwe von links nach rechts). Ihre derartige Ausrichtung würde dann auch im Einklang mit den der jeweiligen Seite zugeschriebenen Eigenschaften stehen: die rechte Seite sei die gute, die linke Seite die schlechte (oder böse).Die Anzahl der in der jeweiligen Schicht eingesetzten, zuweilen gekürzten Backsteine [1 und 3; Abb. 4] wird von der Größe und der Aufteilung der Wände bestimmt. Deswegen ist nicht davon auszugehen, dass diese Zahlenwerte eine symbolische Bedeutung in sich bergen. Demgegenüber nimmt der Fries [2] in der oberen Partie der äußeren Portalarkade etwa zwei Drittel der Länge des jeweiligen Arkadenbogens ein, von der Spitze an gerechnet; auf der Westseite reicht er bis zur zweiten Schicht (von oben; oder vierten von unten gerechnet) der glatten, glasierten Backsteine, obwohl sich der Abakus des Türpfostenkapitells auf der Höhe der zweiten Backsteinschicht (von unten; oder der vierten von oben gerechnet; Abb. 4). Ist das Aussehen der Archivolte seit ihrer Erbauung unverändert, so ist die Anordnung ihrer Teile entweder auf einen vorübergehenden Mangel an mit zoomorphen Darstellungen verzierten Backsteinen während der Errichtung der Wand zwischen der zweiten unteren und der zweiten oberen Schicht glatt glasierter Backsteine zurückzuführen, was eher unwahrscheinlich scheint, oder auf eine sehr entwurfgenaue Ausführung der Archivolte, deren zoomorpher Fries aus zwölf Backsteinen mit dem Bild eines Löwen im rechten Profil (westlicher Halbbogen) sowie zehn (ursprünglich elf) Backsteinen mit den entgegensetzt ausgerichteten Bildern eines Hippogryphs und eines Hirsches besteht (12×L / 3×G, J, G, J, G, 3×J, ?). Wegen der offenbar nicht zufällig gewählten Zahl (12) der Segmente des westlichen Halbbogens der äußeren Portalarkade der Goldenen Pforte können die hier abgebildeten, mähnenlosen Löwen mit den zwölf Löwen an den zum Throne Salomos führenden Stufen assoziiert werden (1. Könige 10,20; 2. Chronika 9,19). Diese zwölf Löwen stehen symbolisch für die Prediger, die in Nachfolge der Apostel für die Verbreitung des wahren Glaubens tätig waren (ordo praedicatorum, Anm. 131). Den Zweck dieser Tätigkeit und die dabei angewandte Vorgehensweise erklären die Backsteinbilder des östlichen Halbbogens, die den die Taufe symbolisch darstellenden Hirsch sowie den feuerspeienden Hippogryph zeigen, der die Kraft aus dem ihn zugleich beschützenden Glauben (Kreuzschild) schöpft. Seine Keuschheit bringt der hinter seinem Hals sichtbarer Pfeil zum Ausdruck. Sollte das Geschoss indessen den Hals durchbohrt haben, so würde es dann nicht nur „den Zorn der Keuschheit gegen die Ausschweifung“ versinnbildlichen, sondern ebenso die Bereitschaft der Kreuzritter, bei der Verteidigung des Glaubens ihr Leben hinzugeben. Ähnlich hätte auch eine Lanze als gute Absicht gedeutet werden können, die eine gute Tat hervorbringt, was auch entsprechend belohnt wird. Die ursprüngliche Anzahl der Tierwesen im Fries des östlichen Halbbogens der Archivolte (11) verbirgt – angesichts der oben aufgezeigten Deutung der zwölf Löwen (ordo praedicatorum) – mutmaßlich einen anderen Hinweis auf die Missionstätigkeit des Deutschen Ordens. So dauerte es elf Jahre, bis die Ordensritter die prußischen Heiden „dem Christenglauben machtvoll unterwarfen”. Eine natürliche Konsequenz der Ausrichtung der Tierwesen nach links (Hippogryph, Hirsch) oder rechts (Löwe, Drache) ist ihre antithetische Gegenüberstellung, die eine Auseinandersetzung suggeriert. Dabei ist zu betonen, dass eine solche Gegenüberstellung nicht unbedingt auf einen Konflikt hinweisen muss. Die Deutung des Aufeinandertreffens der Wesen hängt von der ihnen zugeschriebenen Symbolik ab. Zwei davon – der Löwe und der Greif – sind mehrdeutig; der Hirsch wurde stets positiv, der Drache hingegen stets negativ gesehen.Es ist schwer zu sagen, ob das weiße Steingesims des Südwandsockels der Kapelle (Abb. 2, 4-7) eine ästhetische oder eher eine symbolische Bedeutung hatte (architekturtechnisch spielte es sicherlich keine Rolle). Es ging hier wohl weniger darum, die Solidität der Grundmauern der Kapelle zu betonen, sondern um die Hervorhebung der symbolischen, sich auf die Missionstätigkeit des Deutschen Ordens in Preußen beziehenden Inhalte des direkt darüber verlaufenden zoomorphen Frieses. Sein Abschnitt [2.1; Abb. 4] – zwischen den Portaleingängen der Büßerzelle und des zur Empore führenden Treppenganges – kann als Darstellung des Kampfes des Ordens (Hippogryph) gegen das Böse (Drache) zwecks Bekehrung der Heiden (Hirsch) gedeutet werden. Der Sinn der Backsteinbilder im Fries östlich der Goldenen Pforte [2.3] erschließt sich hingegen nicht so leicht. Werden die die Kapelle verlassenden Mächte des Bösen (Drachen und Löwen) vom Greif nicht erfolgreich genug bekämpft, da der Drache fliehen konnte? Obwohl es kaum Zweifel daran geben kann, dass die im Fries verwendeten Darstellungen der Tierwesen gemäß den in ihnen kodierten symbolischen Inhalten angeordnet wurden, führen Versuche, die Details dieser Inhalte in den 18 Backsteinbildern der Westwand der Portalvorhalle zu deuten, mitnichten zu einem zufriedenstellenden Ergebnis. Auch die Glasurfarbe der einzelnen Backsteine (diverse Gelb- und Brauntöne, Schwarz, dunkles Grün) liefert wohl in Bezug auf die Anordnung der Bilder nach diesem Kriterium kaum zielführende Hinweise. Solange nicht bekannt ist, inwiefern die Restaurierungen der 1880ger Jahre die zoomorphen Friese verändert haben, muss von weiteren Deutungen ihrer symbolischen Inhalte abgesehen werden.
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Exhibition of Bell-Making Decorations, Lwów 1920 At the end of 1914 and in early 1915, the German concept of blitzkrieg on the western front failed, while on the eastern front, the latter exceptionally long, as stretching from the outlet of the Neman up to the Carpathians, the situation had stabilized. At that moment, the generals on both sides realized that the fights would go on for longer than they had anticipated. They swiftly prepared terrain for the planned war activities: troops were being regrouped, recruits called up, arms and strategic resources stored, civilians evacuated, major factories moved, cultural goods taken away, etc. At that point, the action of bell requisition was launched; during a war bells, once melted, could provide material for the production of guns and ammunition. It was for the first time in the military history that the demand for high-grade metals was so pressing, and such a large-scale logistically complex project of making lists of, accumulating, and transferring of some dozen or maybe even some hundred thousands of bells on the European territory was conducted. This complex operation involved central state institutions, as well as regional ones, and many civic organizations. War requisitions on the Polish territories occurred almost simultaneously on those of the three partitions. Begun already in 1915, they climaxed in the autumn of 1916. During the evacuation, social collections, and the bell requisition, the clergy and historians came across numerous historic items: ‘quite many priests had an opportunity to realize for the first time and see from so close that they had to do with a lot of precious specimens’. The distinguished art historian and monument conservator Tadeusz Szydłowski in the introduction to his study dedicated to bells, and published in 1922, lamented over the fact that no inventory had been made of them before the War, as then it would have been easier to protect the historic ones against the requisition. The Poles involved in the transportation of the bells across the territories of the three partitions as well as lovers of the antiquities organized bells’ listing, so that later the demand for the return of specific items or for compensation could be made, this actually in compliance with the existing legal regulations. Held at the Lwów Museum of King John III, the Exhibition of Bell-making Decoration launched on 10 July 1920, constituted the outcome of the collection of high-grade metals ordered several years before by all the armies fighting in WW I. It was for the first time on the Polish territory that accomplishments of this branch of artistic craftsmanship were presented, and this may have been the only such large-scale display ever organized in Polish museums. A historian of literature by education, Karol Badecki, PhD, a Lwów archivist, was the Exhibition’s originator and Curator. The requisitions prompted him to take interest in the bells from Galicia Catholic and Orthodox churches. With time, he was appointed a ‘bell conservator’ responsible for the proper implementation of the instruments’ requisition. While documenting the requisitioned bells, Karol Badecki and people around him observed the following challenges: the urgency to restore in the Galicia churches the same number of bells as before the War; the need to improve the quality of their casts; the creation of real capacities for the revival of bell-making; as well as the preparation of documents meant to facilitate the war reparations and compensations. The majority of claims were voiced by Badecki in the article ‘For the Sake of Our Future Bell-making’, published in instalments in the ‘Nowa Polska’ periodical and in the appeal: ‘Let Us Create Our Native Bell-making’ sent out to many Polish magazines. ‘The Exhibition of Bell-making Decoration’, whose range in the course of the preparation was extended to all metal-cast everyday objects, was meant not only to demonstrate the output of Galicia’s bell-making and the incurred losses: it was to factually support the idea of establishing a Lwów bell foundry and of the revival of this craftsmanship. The Lwów display, prepared already during the Polish-Soviet War, was successful, which cannot be said of the initiative to launch a modern artistic bell-foundry in the city. Following the Exhibition’s closure, some exhibits remained with the Curator, who tried in vain to transfer them to different institutions. In the statements made by the individuals involved in the war register of bells (K. Badecki, A. Borawski, J. Remer, M. Morelowski, M. Brensztejn), and recorded before 1923, claims to conduct some professional research into bell-making can be heard. In later Polish campanological writing of the inter-war period the issue of establishing an all-Polish programme for bell records was not retackled. Following the intense cataloguing of bells during WW I such research was given up. The crowning of Karol Badecki’s works was to be found in the publication he was preparing for print in 1933. What has been preserved of it is the draft layout of its title page: ‘Epigraphics and Ornaments of Lesser Poland (Poland’s Southern Territories) Bells in the 17th Century on the Grounds of the Cataloguing Materials of the Author Collected in the War Years 1916-17 and Kept in the Collection of the Lwów Historical Museum, with 12 plates and 200 illustrations in the text in Lwów in 1933’. To-date its manuscript has not been found, however recently material containing several thousand pages, and related to the requisition of bells in Galicia has been collected; a substantial part of it is made up of the documents produced by Karol Badecki and present in the 1920 Exhibition. Plans have been made for the material to be used in the history of bell-making prepared by the Campanological Unit at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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Polish Artistic Associations in Wilno in the 1930s In the paper the history and activity of several associations created among the Polish artistic circles in Wilno in the 1930s are discussed; these including the Wilno Society of Independent Artists (Wileńskie Towarzystwo Niezależnych Artystów Sztuk Plastycznych, 1930-40), Artistic Brotherhood (Bractwo Artystyczne, 1929-33), Artistic Cooperative (Spółdzielnia Artystyczna, 1933-34), Cooperative of the Wilno Artists (Spółdzielnia Pracy Artystów Wileńskich, 1937-39), ‘Wilno Group’ Society of Artists (Towarzystwo Artystów Plastyków ‘Grupa Wileńska’, 1937-39), as well as organizations whose goal was to support the activity of artistic movements, and the promotion of fine arts in society: ‘Museum of Contemporary Art in Wilno’ Association (Stowarzyszenie ‘Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej w Wilnie’, 1931-39), Council of Wilno Artistic Associations (Rada Wileńskich Zrzeszeń Artystycznych RWZA, 1932-39), and the Wilno Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts (Wileńskie Towarzystwo Szerzenia Kultury Sztuk Plastycznych, 1937-39). The history of the Wilno associations established in the 1930s by artists testifies to the fact that a generational change had occurred among the artistic circles there. Painters, sculptors, and graphic artists. educated already at the Department of Fine Arts at Stefan Batory University, whose career beginning coincided with the tough years of the economic crisis, organized themselves at the onset of the 1930s first of all to facilitate overcoming their own career and economic challenges. Such was the goal of the Artistic Cooperative or the Cooperative of Wilno Artists. It was only afterwards, in the late 1930s, that ‘situational groups’, meant to assist artists in them gaining a position among the artistic circles, appeared, these including the ‘Wilno Group’ or the informal Team of Wilno Artists (Zespół Artystów Wileńskich, 1939) established with an exhibition in mind. Meanwhile, the associations dealing with, among others, organization of artistic life and taking care of art should be regarded as attempts at establishing institutionalized forms of collective patronage: social ‘superior bodies’ meant to support and coordinate, and thus indirectly supervise activities undertaken by artists themselves. In this respect the establishment of RWZA was of particular impact; with the institution becoming a model for similar organizations established in 1934: the Toruń Council of Academic and Cultural Associations of Pomerania (Rada Zrzeszeń Naukowych i Kulturalnych Ziemi Pomorskiej), the Poznań Union of Artistic and Cultural Associations (Zrzeszenie Związków Artystycznych i Kulturalnych), as well as the Bydgoszcz Artistic and Cultural Council (Rada Artystyczno-Kulturalna).
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The composition of the Last Judgment in the church of Prophet Elijah (1550) in Iliyantsi (Sofia) was the first in Bulgaria in its new, thematically expanded model introduced by the Cretan school in the monasteries on Mount Athos and on the island in the Ioannina lake (1530s–1540s). Just several years later, the new elements such as the Dream of Daniel and the image of the poor man were included. The artist has not only transferred and interpreted the latest novelties for the 16th century, but has also added to and enriched the picture of the Last Judgment with unique images such as the personifications of the planets and the Zodiac, images of the prophets David and Solomon, the Heavenly Jerusalem and the conversation of the Theotokos with Archangel Michael in heaven. The image of an icon of Christ Pantokrator at the scales with sins also remains without a parallel and difficult to interpret. The numerous novelties in the iconography of the Iliyantsi church, introduced for the first time several years earlier on Mount Athos, may only be due to very active and direct relations between Sofia and Mt. Athos during the 16th century.
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The article analyzes one of the key ideas of Prof. Atanas Natev in his attempt to create a systematic theory of drama, namely his theory of "intermission" as a basic constructive principle for building dramatic action and the specific way in which drama affects the perceiver. The theory of "intermission" is compared with the ideas of the emerging at the same time literary discipline "narratology", the work of the structuralist trend in literary studies. This is necessary because narratology has given other explanations to some of the key ideas in the theory of "intermission". The main question that is asked in the article is whether in the seemingly devoid of the figure of the mediator dramatic composition, such does not exist, albeit only implicitly. Because drama, as well as the other two genres - lyric and epic -, need the fictional figure of the subject, which turns the amorphous structure of the "flow of life" into "history", and then into a carefully composed plot for the viewer to recreate in his mind during the performance, as the theory of the "intermission" states.
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The article is focused on one of the few plays for children by the Bulgarian poet and playwright Stefan Tsanev. On the basis of some poetical specifics in the text of “The most wonderful Wonder” is formulated a hypothesis about the ‘strategy’ of this work as an actualization of phoneticism of the language. In this sense the form of the play is analyzed as a demonstration of the archaic and even the paleolinguistic aspect of the language i.e. of its asemanticity. In this way are interpreted the names of the characters, which are only letters, and the poetic figures with homonymy, paronymy, onomatopoeia etc. The form of the dramatic work is analyzed in relation to the allegorical narrative of a starving primitive tribe which literally degrades to the apes. The one of the main characters – the chief and shaman called U is understood as an ambivalent figure of the speech, as a figure of the both political demagoguery and mystical poetic speech.
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Games take part in the evolution of humans throughout their entire life and become means of discovering the world and the reality and represent the way of accepting, understanding and appropriating the rules and conventions of society and at the same time discovering fantasy and developing imagination. These features of the game transpose into the theatre and into the training process of actors, with the purpose of resetting the ways of thought and perception on immediate reality. For generation Z the game becomes a bridge to the digital world, to the different forms of virtual reality. The Ludic element remains essentially the same, even if the game acquires new forms of manifestation. The new perception of the idea of game and play imposes a change of the theatrical games and exercises with the purpose of meeting the needs and values of young emergent-adult, through the dynamics and relevance necessary to stimulate motivation and achieve the main goals of the process of actor training.
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