Tezauronimiczny „skarbczyk” sztucznej biżuterii. Kilka uwag o nazwach własnych „drugorzędnych klejnotów”

Imitation jewellery, also known as “secondary gems”, has been people’s companion from antiquity. Its representative objects, however, have rarely been assigned their individualised proper names – thesauronyms. As an answer to the appeal of Polish art historians and museologists: Ewa Letkiewicz, Katarzyna Kluczwajd, Monika Paś and Dorota Zahel, this study is an attempt at a linguistic and culturological presentation of thesauronyms that signify: a pair of earrings, collar, ring, fur fastener clip, necklaces, brooches, duette brooches, jewellery series, collections, lines, sets, limited edition. The attention is also drawn to the specificity of thesauronyms distinguishing similar jewellery items and thesauronyms denoting many various and completely different referents. Moreover, motivation analysis, semantic and motivation analysis, and structural analysis of the names of imitation jewellery names has been conducted. The findings allowed for redefining, verifying, supplementing and extending the term thesauronym.

Two Paradigms – Two Art Worlds: On Constructing the Difference as a Strategy for Validating the Concept of the Artist and Art

The subject of the article is two art worlds in the field of visual arts which currently exist side by side in Poland. These worlds operate as part of two different paradigms of art, which is why two different definitions of the art and artist apply to them, and, in consequence, also different models of operation. What is important in the case of both communities is the process of constructing the difference and separating out their own communities of meanings, being a strategy to lend credence to their own concept of the art and artist, as well as their position in the art world. The aim of the article is to describe the process of constructing internal boundaries in the Polish art world and its division into two separate worlds, what means have been used in that process, as well as what are the consequences of belonging to the two separate art worlds for their participants.

‘Through a Microscope from a Telescopic Distance’: Witkacy, Cameron and the Photography of Faces

Witkacy was a central figure of the Polish art scene in the first half of the twentieth century. A painter, writer, philosopher, art theorist, and playwright, he also imaginatively played with the photographic medium. This article will show that the most significant part of his photographic practice, carried on since his youth, was centered on faces. Debating the prevailing view that tends to see Witkacy as a lone visionary, I will argue that Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographic portraits inspired the artist’s style and approach to the genre of photographic portraiture.

Monachijski portret króla Zygmunta Augusta i uwagi o ikonografii ostatniego Jagiellona

W zbiorach Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen w Monachium jest przechowywany portret króla Zygmunta Augusta, który po ponad pół wieku poszukiwań przez polskich historyków sztuki został niedawno odnaleziony i zidentyfikowany. Ma on ogromne znaczenie dla ikonografii ostatniego Jagiellona bowiem, jak dotąd, jest jego jedynym znanym malarskim przedstawieniem w całej postaci, powstałym za życia modela. Wizerunek pozostaje w związku z miniaturowym portretem monarchy w popiersiu, dawniej w kolekcji arcyksięcia Ferdynanda II Tyrolskiego w Ambras, obecnie w Münzenkabinett w wiedeńskim Kunsthistorisches Museum. Oba obrazy, tego samego autora, powstały na polskim dworze tuż przed połową XVI stulecia. Ich twórca był dobrze obeznany ze stosowanymi wówczas we Włoszech i cieszącymi się uznaniem kompozycjami portretowymi. Monachijski obraz trafił do bawarskich zbiorów Wittelsbachów, jak wszystko na to wskazuje, wraz z wyprawą ślubną królewny Anny Katarzyny Konstancji Wazówny, w roku 1642 wydanej za mąż za księcia neuburskiego Filipa Wilhelma. Należał do zespołu wizerunków członków rodziny Jagiellonów, zabranych do Bawarii przez Wazównę, lecz powstał w okolicznościach innych niż pozostałe portrety i jest dziełem o odmiennej genezie artystycznej. Ujawniony w zbiorach monachijskich portret nie tylko w istotny sposób wzbogaca ikonografię ostatniego Jagiellona, lecz ma również znaczenie dla wiedzy o królewskim mecenacie. Summary: The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen collection in Munich houses a portrait of King Sigismund Augustus, which was recently discovered and identified by Polish art historians following a quest lasting more than half a century. It sheds important light on the iconography of the last Jagiellonian, as it remains to date the only known representation in pictorial form of the model during his lifetime. It is related to a bust portrait miniature of the monarch, formerly found in the collection of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tirol in Ambras, and nowadays on show in the Münzenkabinett in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Both paintings by the same artist were produced at the Polish court just before the mid-16th century. Their creator was well acquainted with the highly regarded compositional techniques used at the time in portraiture in Italy. All the evidence suggests that the Munich painting found its way into the Bavarian Wittelsbach collections as part of the trousseau of Princess Anna Catherine Konstancja Wazówna, who in 1642 married the Neuburian prince Philip Wilhelm. It was included in the collection of portraits of members of the Jagiellonian family, that Wazówna took with her to Bavaria. However, it was painted in circumstances different from other portraits and is a work with a different artistic genesis. This portrait unearthed in the Munich collection not only greatly enriches the existing iconography of the last Jagiellonian, but it also makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of royal patronage.

The Architects of the Fontana Family in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The History of a Clan

At the turn of the eighteenth century, the newcomers of the Fontana family settled in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and eventually rallied a clan of architects and engineers based on family ties. In the middle of the eighteenth century, some of the individuals connected by familial ties resided in Warsaw and worked in the milieu of the royal court, but the zone of their activity and influence covered almost the whole territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the historiography of Polish art, the Fontanas and other architects related to them have been studied in some detail, but those family members who resided and worked in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have not been adequately researched. The phenomenon of this clan is not featured in the circulation of the history of Lithuanian art, nor has its role in the evolution of eighteenth-century architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania been assessed. The biographical information on the Fontana family and the data on their architectural activities suggest that the Fontana family of architects, which operated in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, comprised a group based on kinship that consciously sought to firmly establish themselves and assert leadership in the field of architecture. In the eighteenth century, the architects of the Fontana family introduced the stylistic trend of “Classicist” Baroque to the architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This style encompassed the echoes of Northern Italian mannerism, ascetic and austere traditions of mature baroque of Rome, as well as ideas and variations of forms transformed in the milieu of Warsaw triggered by following such precursors as Tylman van Gameren. Classicist Baroque stimulated a wide response. In the eighteenth-century arena of baroque architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it was competing against its main rival, the school of Vilnius Baroque.

Dark Times: Art and Artists of Vilnius in 1939–1941

The aim of this paper is to discuss and reconstruct in general features the reality of the Vilnius artistic community from late autumn 1939 to June 1941. This period of less than two years significantly changed the configuration of the artistic community of the city, the system of institutions shaping the art scene as well as the artistic goals. It also brought forth new names and inspired new images. These changes were above all determined by political circumstances: the war that broke out in Poland on 1 September 1939; the ceding of Vilnius and the Vilnius region to Lithuania; two Soviet occupations: in the autumn of 1939 and June 1940, and the subsequent Nazi occupation a year later. The influence of politics on the art scene and the life of artists has been explored in institutional and other aspects by both Lithuanian and Polish art historians, but the big picture is not yet complete, and the general narrative is still under construction. A further aim of this paper is to highlight some elements that have not received sufficient attention in historiography and that are necessary for the reconstruction of the whole. Some facts of cooperation or its absence among artists of various ethnicities are presented, and the question is raised on the extent to which these different groups were affected by Sovietisation, and what impact this fragmentation had on the city’s art scene. The timeline of the activity of the higher art school and the Art Museum has been detailed.

Manggha – Feliks Jasieński. O mało znanym filmie Kazimierza Muchy

Manggha (Feliks Jasieński) – on a little-known film by Kazimierz Mucha This article contains an analysis of an educational documentary film released in 1981 and directed by Kazimierz Mucha. The film is not accessible to a wider public, and a copy (not of the highest quality) is stored in the archive of the Wytwórnia Filmów Oświatowych (Educational Film Studio) in Łódź. However, this film is an interesting and unique example of the interest of Polish filmmaking in Japanese art. Despite what the title might suggest, this is not a biographical documentary. In it, only a few selected facts drawn from the life of Feliks Jasieński are presented, frequently interspersed with quotations. Above all, the makers of the film focused on a presentation of the collection of Japanese art gathered by Manggha (Jasieński’s artistic pseudonym), and also on its reception in Poland during Jasieński’s period of activity, that is at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Because it is a short film (this was surely a requirement imposed on the majority of educational films), the film refers to the abovementioned issues in a synthetic and incomplete fashion. Besides offering an analysis of the film, this article throws light on the somewhat forgotten figure of Jasieński and the Promethean ideas that he espoused of grafting several models drawn from Japanese culture on to Polish art, at a time when a broad Polish public encountered Japanese culture for the first time.

Jewish Art Collectors in Poland and the Works of Maksymilian Gierymski before World War II

From the end of the nineteenth century and up to the beginning of World War II, many of Maksymilian Gierymski’s (1846-1874) works were part of the collections of respected Jewish collectors, including Maksymilian Adam Oderfeld, Edward Rejcher, Stanisław Rotwand, Adolf Peretz, and Abe Gutnajer. They combined buying Polish art with providing financial support for many Polish cultural institutions. Thanks to these collectors the Polish public had better knowledge of Gierymski’s art. They bought his works at a time when the best examples of his oeuvre were abroad. 1939 was a tragic turning point for their activity. Collections were destroyed or stolen, including Gierymski’s work, and most of these items were not catalogued. Nevertheless, the collectors’ knowledge, passion, and expertise raised the bar for standards in Polish art collecting generally. The forgotten activity of Poland’s Jewish collectors is an essential part of the history of nineteenth-century Polish art.

Enter the Dragon

The paper is a reminiscence of my first meeting with the colleagues from the Institute of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, which took place at an annual conference of the Association of Art Historians in 1974, titled “Reflection on Art.” Choosing an unusual title, I wanted to convey the impetus with which a group of young art historians from Poznań entered the decent and somewhat stagnant stage of Polish art history. The critique they presented was directed against Polish academic institutions, the problematic of the conference, the empty rituals of academic life, etc. Even though I did not accept all their objections, the heated debate suddenly turned out for me to be a liberating factor, stimulating continuous critical thinking which is an antidote for spiritual and intellectual captivity.