Polish Painter Research Articles

Baghdad Kept on Working: Painting and Propaganda during the British Occupation of Iraq, 1941–45

This article explores the late-colonial context for a wartime encounter between Polish and Iraqi artists during a period of British military reoccupation, 1941–45. Linking E. L. T. Mesens’s propaganda work for the Allied cause to the activities of Polish painters stationed in Baghdad, particularly Józef Czapski (1896–93) and Józef Jarema (1900–1974), and to those of Iraqi artists Jewad Selim (1919–1961) and Jamil Hamoudi (1924–2003), it demonstrates how a consortium of artists and officers came to model a version of modern art construed as free inquiry into form, or “art alone.” Polish artists mobilized propagandistic narratives about threats to civilization, including the loss of Paris as an open city. Responses by Iraqi artists both reflect and refract the Allied version of civilizational values. As such, the Polish-Iraqi encounter represents an early, not-yet-postwar reckoning with doubts about the progression of artistic practice in a world in which barbarous violence was always imminent.

„Sztuka dla sztuki” czy „sztuka dla narodu”? Działalność artystyczna, krytycznoliteracka oraz wydawnicza Iwana Trusza wobec wyzwań ukraińskiego życia społecznego w Galicji na przełomie XIX i XX wieku

The article is an attempt at reconstructing the artistic and critical literary activity of a Ukrainian painter Iwan Trusz, who noticed a great need of the Ukrainian society to cultivate and develop national art. The Ukrainian artist also contributed to the development of Polish art of that period, as he was highly estimated among Polish intellectuals and took an active part in Polish and Ukrainian cultural enterprises that took place in Lviv at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The experience which Trusz gained during his education in the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts, as well as his direct contact with distinguished Polish painters (e.g. Leon Wyczółkowski, Jan Stanisławski) evoked in the painter a great need to take care of the enrichment of contemporary Ukrainian art and to raise the awareness of Galician Ukrainians about the effect which art has on the formation of every nation. Looking at the activity of Trusz‑an artist or Trusz‑an art critic from the perspective of the 21st century, makes it possible to find the answers to some key questions: “Should national art be promoted?”, “How to educate society through art?” and “What is the role of an artist during the formation of an independent nation?”

Ferdynand Ruszczyc: A Polish Painter at the Crossroads of Cultures

The oeuvre of beloved Polish painter Ferdynand Ruszczyc (1870–1936) reflected the patriotic Neo-Romantic landscape trend of the fin-de-siècle prevalent in Germany and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden). It should be considered in the context of Nordic visual culture for two reasons: (1) until the affiliation of Central and Eastern European nations with the Soviet Union in the wake of World War Two, nations bordering the Baltic formed a single, fluid territory of cultural exchange, and (2) Ruszczyc’s oeuvre displays significant commonalities with dominant patriotic and Neo-Romantic trends of progressive artists around the Baltic Sea, where landscape became a vehicle for expressing dreams and emotions, as well as love of homeland. This article situates Ruszczyc’s national and artistic identity at the crossroads of cultures and artistic impulses, regional as well as international. Ruszczyc was born in Bohdanów near Vilnius (now Belarus) to a Polish father and a Danish mother. Like many Polish artists from the Russian partition, he was educated at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where he studied with Ivan Shishkin (1832–1898) and Arkhip Kuindzhi (1878–1910). He also travelled to Sweden. Ruszczyc was influenced by the Russian art circle Mir Iskusstva (World of Art, est. 1898) and is often compared with Nordic (e.g., Akseli Gallen-Kallela; Finnish, 1865–1931) and German (e.g., Otto Modersohn; 1865–1943) artists. His visions of nature are sometimes raw monumental images of the northern landscape or fairy-tale fantasies containing symbolic allusiveness and a mythical, poetic element that evoke intimate memories of the land of his childhood. In his paintings, Ruszczyc presented the changeability of seasons, orchards, soil and streams, clouds formations, and tree trunks with palpable emotion. By exposing the material substance of nature, his paintings also reveal its mystical aspect, its ability to transform in accordance with the cyclical, cosmic rhythm of growth, maturation, death, and rebirth.

Relacje polsko-niemieckie piórem malarza spisane na podstawie Pamiętników Juliana Fałata (1935) i Wspomnień Wojciecha Kossaka (1913/1973)

This article is an analysis of two autobiographical texts by famous Polish painters of the turn of the century: Julian Fałat’s Pamiętniki (Diaries) from 1935 and Wojciech Kossak’s Wspomnienia (Reminiscences) from 1913. These texts constitute a source of information not only about the life of Polish artists at the imperial court in Berlin, but also a treasury of historical knowledge about the moods prevailing in the Wilhelmine era, the Polish–German relations in particular. In both texts, the most important figure is that of the German emperor, his involvement in the affairs of art and concern for the fate of outstanding Polish painters. The analysed texts allowed, above all, for showing the difficulties in Polish–German relations at the turn of the century, the ambivalence of the German emperor in relation to the Polish issue and individual Poles, and the difficulties of Polish artists in maintaining the balance between being the court painter of the German emperor and a Polish patriot.

DESIGNING MUSEUM EXHIBITION’SCOMMUNICATION: REPORT AND RESEARCHANALYSIS

Between March and August 2022, the NationalMuseum in Lublin mounted the first in Poland exhibition ofthe Polish painter Tamara Lempicka. The number of publicwho visited it reached 86,667, which made it an event of thehighest turn-out in Poland.An attempt to analyse the wonder of Lempicka’s communicationsuccess, the unwavering interest in her personalityand art, has been made by the Author. This effortwas helped through reaching the current carriers of herbrand, namely contemporary fashion designers, authorsof adverts, films, or literature pieces. The Author analysedthe results of the research conducted during the Exhibition,amounting to 1,544 surveys in total. The study’s purposewas to verify public’s satisfaction, locations visitors hadcome from, source of information on the Exhibition, efficiencyof the Museum’s communication endeavours,and the public’s profile. The visitors considered thefollowing to have been the Exhibition’s strongest points(by order of preference); exhibits, topic, layout, narrative,curator’s concept, and the design. Interestingly, when theExhibition was open to the public and the advertising andinforming campaign was being implemented, the administratorsof social media observed a significant increase inthe number of visitors, The Facebook profile witnessed theincrease by 54.8 per cent versus the previous five months,while the Instagram account’s visits grew by as many as202.6 per cent.Furthermore, also the campaign promoting the eventwas analysed; it was not limited either to the Internet orexternal advertising, but was also conducted at the venuewhere the Exhibition was held. The power of socialmedia was efficiently used and consciously managed by theExhibition organizers, which substantially contributed to popularizingthe project.

Der Krakauer Maler Józef Mehoffer und dessen deutsch-österreichische Herkunft im Spiegel von NS-Akten 1940 bis 1941

The article renders the heretofore poorly studied actions of the German national-socialist, occupant authorities between 1940 and 1941 targeted at the Cracow’s painter Józef Mehoffer, whose roots were German-Austrian, and his wife. The analysis of German documents collected in the Archive the New Files in Warsaw has clarified many aspects of the life of this well-known Polish painter. Previously much of this was incorrect, and the documents significantly contributed to the part of his biography during the occupation.

Crossing the textual frame and its transmedial effects

The year 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of Juri Lotman’s birth. On this occasion, I propose to return to one of Lotman’s concepts, namely that of frame. The term was proposed in The structure of the artistic text (1970/1977), in the traditional understanding of a limit that separates a text produced in any kind of medium from extra-textual structures (other texts) or non-text (real-life contexts). This notion of frame comes close to its understanding in literary studies, as well as the theory and philosophy of art and should not be confused with a well-known concept of frame propagated in AI Studies (Minsky 1975; Petöfi 1976) and which refers to a global cognitive pattern of storing common-sense knowledge about particular concepts and situations in memory. Lotman returned to the discussion of the textual frame in Universe of the mind (1990), mainly in application to the fine arts. He also elaborated there a more inclusive concept of boundary (proposed in Lotman 1984/2005) as a demarcation of the semiosphere and of its internal subsystems, which necessitates constant translations between particular codes and languages. Lotman dubbed transgressions of textual borders transcoding, which in contemporary parlance is a clear manifestation of transmediality. Therefore, I propose to analyse the concept of frame in relation to Intermedial Studies (cf. Elleström, 2014). Such crossings of boundaries between different media/modes/modalities are simultaneously creative and potentially confusing, in that they display a semiotic collision of artistic codes and require a heightened processing effort on the part of the addressee. My vantage point is basically semiotic, with the focus of interest going less to verbal texts and more to the issues of frame in the visual arts. Semiotic considerations on the problem of boundaries are complemented with brief phenomenologically-oriented ponderings on aesthetic and cognitive import of framing devices (Crowther, 2009) that emphasize their antithetical function as: a) devices with their own artistic value, even complementing the text vs. b) “defences against the exterior” and hindrances to creative liberty. First, I turn to two areas of interest of Lotman himself: 1) the extension of artistic media in Baroque art and 2) collages, which I treat as transmediality through surface. Lotman perceived collages as a collision of the fictitious with the real, referring to their doubly figurative nature (metonymical and metaphorical). Next, I complement this discussion with examples taken from 20th-century painting and sculpture, e.g. Spatialism, Minimalism, and Hyperrealism. Of particular interest is the situation in which the frame becomes a text commenting on its content or plays a metatextual function. Another game worthy of attention is embedding of frames. The discussion closes with the case of transmedial effects between painting and theatre, illustrated by Polish painter and stage-director Tadeusz Kantor’s theatrical experiments in Cracovian Cricot 2 Theatre: a) Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita entering Kantor’s self-portraits and a photo-portrait frame in the performance Today is my birthday (1990); b) Kantor stepping out of the frame of his own self-portrait on the illusory boundary between real life, painting and theatre. The article posits to treat frame and multiple ways of transgressing it as an integrational phenomenon that opens a path for further interdisciplinary studies across the borders of artistic semiotics, Intermedial Studies, literary theorizing and the theory and philosophy of art.

Struggle for Recognition. Theosophy in Early 20th Century Warsaw

The present study focuses on the activities of the first Polish Theosophical group, which for many reasons was never fully institutionally recognized. It was active from around 1905 and concentrated around Kazimierz Stabrowski (1869–1929), a Polish painter and the head of the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. The aim of this paper is to sociologically analyze this esoteric environment in Warsaw, which is treated here as an example of a cultic milieu from the perspective of visibility and recognition. Referring to the category of rejected knowledge (anomalies or the “cultural rubbish bin”) and using the case of Stabrowski and other members of the group, the authors highlight their efforts in the struggle for the recognition of their ideas in various environments and trace the process of their exclusion. Further, they examine the status of the Theosophical current in the public discourse of the time, which was undoubtedly related to the scope of Theosophy itself, which largely focused on the liminal aspects of humanity and cognition.

Wczesny okres twórczości Hanny Żuławskiej. Warszawa–Paryż–Gdynia

Hanna Żuławska (1908–1988) was one of the most prominent artists associated with the Tri -City, and dealing with many fields of art: easel and polychrome painting, architectural mosaic, sgraffito, ceramics and small architecture. Her husband was a painter known on the coast: Jacek Żuławski. She is known primarily for her mature work in the 1950s and 60s; it was then that she showed true individuality. From post - -war times, Żuławska was also teacher and professor at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and the manager of the Kadyny Ceramics Works. Little, if anything, is known of Hanna Żuławska’s work in the interwar period.
 In 1930–1934, Żuławska studied at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, among others in the studios of Professors Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski, Leonard Pękalski and Tadeusz Pruszkowski. It seems that Kowarski’s work in the fields of painting and monumental mosaics had a great influence on Żuławska›s later artistic activity. In the 1930s, Żuławska took part in exhibitions at IPS (Art Propaganda Institute).
 At that time, the artist experienced a period of fascination with the works of the members of the Paris Committee and Pierre Bonnard and Paul Cèzanne, which resulted in the pair of the artists, Hanna and Jacek, leaving for Paris on a scholarship in 1935. In Paris, the artist studied in the painting studio of Józef Pankiewicz, painted still lifes, city views and quite standard landscapes; she also visited museums and led a lively social life. In May 1938, the works of Hanna and five other Polish painters were presented at the prestigious Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris. The exhibition was well received by critics in Poland.
 Hanna and her husband returned to Poland and settled in Gdynia in the autumn of 1938, where Żuławska established contacts with the artistic community of the city. In 1938, the artists joined the Gdynia branch of the Trade Union of Polish Artists and Designers, and actively participated in its exhibitions until the outbreak of World War II. In recognition of their contribution to the development of art in Gdynia, the Żuławskis also received state orders for a monumental painting decoration of the barracks’ common room at Redłowo, for the creation of paintings for the Chapel of the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy at Kaszubski Square, and for the polychrome entitled ‘Apotheosis of Gdynia’ in the building of the Government Commissariat (designs not preserved).
 During the Nazi occupation, the Żuławskis were in Warsaw; in November 1944, the artist came to Łańcut near Lublin, where she stayed at an artistic house. In the autumn of 1945, Hanna and Jacek Żuławski together with other residents of the manor house, e.g.: Juliusz Studnicki, Krystyna Łada -Studnicka, Janusz Strzałecki, Józefa and Marian Wnuk, established the State Institute of Fine Arts in Sopot, transformed into the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

The Colors of the Ineffable—Jerzy Nowosielski’s Monumental Works as a Contemporary Search for Sacred Space

The subject of this work is the monumental art of Jerzy Nowosielski (1923–2011), one of the most outstanding contemporary Polish painters, who combined modernity with the orthodox icon aesthetics. This work discusses the monumental realizations of Nowosielski, especially the architectural polychromes made by the artist in Catholic and Orthodox churches in Poland in the years 1950–1999. The aim of the inquiry is to present his work theoretically and place it in a broader artistic context. The research shows that Nowosielski’s monumental works results from a strongly defined artistic concept aimed at ‘mystagogy of space’. Nowosielski’s work is an original synthesis of the modernist avant-garde and traditional canons of religious art. The analysis of the problem was carried out in two areas: (1) analysis of the artist’s theoretical statements; (2) analysis of the artistic form with particular emphasis on the color aspect, based on the example of selected churches in Wesoła, Tychy, and Biały Bór. The work uses comparative references to the ideas of Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and Le Corbusier.

Technical Analysis and Attribution of an Unknown Henryk Siemiradzki Nineteenth Century Painting The Feast of Dionysius I, Revealing a Hidden Composition

ABSTRACT This article presents the results of a study conducted on The Feast of Dionysius I, a previously unknown painting attributed to Henryk Siemiradzki (1843–1902), one of the most prominent Polish painters of the nineteenth century. Analyses were performed to verify the proposed artist. The results were surprising. Not only did they confirm the authenticity of the work, but they also revealed another paint sketch underneath. We determined that the first chronologically created composition was a unique study for Siemiradzki’s famous large-scale painting, Nero’s Torches. It was possible to draw these conclusions by using of imaging at a range of wave lengths and by conducting multiple analyses with the following techniques: optical microscopy in visible light and ultraviolet radiation, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Our findings were also supported by documentary sources. The results of these analyses were then compared with the database regarding the materials (including pigments) and methods of executing paintings applied by Henryk Siemiradzki. The database was compiled based on the examinations conducted in the National Museum in Krakow of Siemiradzki’s 75 oil paintings.

Horseback riding in the history of Poland – selected moments and reflections

Background. The cavalry was the primary armed force of Poles and their legendary ancestors from ancient times, especially in historical formations. It also functions as an element of national history in culture in its various areas. Problem. How this fragment of the old Polish military culture manifests itself in high and mass culture, in the world of film, in the city space, in pictures and numismatic values, and how is it displayed in the field of martial arts cultivated today? Method. The answers will be formulated based on an analysis of 30 selected works of art, value or cultural artefacts and illustrated with examples. Examples include films of Polish cinematography (Teutonic Knights, The Deluge, Hubal and others), a series of commemorative medals and paintings by outstanding Polish painters that inspired the authors of these medals. Therefore, both great paintings by outstanding artists (Jan Matejko, Wojciech Kossak etc.), monuments and films, and small graphic forms (coins, medals). Results and conclusions. This Polish tradition of military culture manifests itself even today in high culture (painting, literature) and mass culture (films, songs), in urban space (monuments), and the artistic qualities of medals. It is also cultivated in the Polish martial art practised today – in teaching one of the schools. It is about horse fencing in Signum Polonicum.

Leh Asıllı Stanislaw Chlebowski’nin Osmanlı Saray Ressamı Olarak İstihdamı ve Ayrılışı

As well as being the centre of the governmental body of the State, the Ottoman court also played a significant role in the enhancement of the cultural and artistic life of the court. Traditional funding and encouragement by the court of artists from various fields continued during the 19th century. It is a fact that many European painters were keen on being employed by the Ottoman court and presenting their works to the Sultan. The Polish painter, Stanislaw Chlebowski, was one of those above-mentioned painters. Hired in 1870 as a “court painter” by Sultan Abdulaziz, Chlebowski found that he had the opportunity to bring many years of experience to the Ottoman world. In line with the orders of the Sultan he created a great number of pieces featuring the historic scenes of the city of Istanbul along with the battles and victories of the empire’s classical ages. Chlebowski, having gained the appreciation of the Sultan and having acquired an international fame during his tenure, asked for leave and subsequently resigned from his post due to health concerns.

The Portrait of an Italian Woman by Olga Boznanska Exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1938: New Elements from a Stylistic and Archival Perspective

This targeted stylistic, bibliographical, and archival investigation casts a major light on a relevant portrait of a woman by the Polish painter Olga Boznan­ska, highlighting its rich exhibition and collection. The recent appearance in a Polish auction of a similar painting by Boznanska leads to the hypothesis that the subject of the painting—whose identity still remains a mystery—is the same in both paintings.

Bronka Michałowska: A Life in Art

Abstract The article is an introduction to an in-depth critical analysis of the artistic oeuvre of Bronka Michałowska—a Polish painter and author of a substantial collection of ceramic works. Michałowska’s artistic activity has been presented in the manuscript in the context of her immigrant experience which includes the artist’s short stay in London, and later in Canada (Toronto) where she lived for sixty years and where she died in the year 2015. The article examines several main stages in the whole collection of Michałowska’s ceramic works which include the creation of: ceramic paintings with figural and floral representations, symbolic and allegorical works, and ceramic murals that resemble stained glass-work. A separate study has been dedicated to Michałowska’s household ceramic objects such as multipiece fiance sets, vases, bowls, teacups, and mugs, as well as to the possible sources of her artistic (painterly) inspirations; for example, the work of such artists as Henri Matisse, Tom Thomson, and Arthur Lismer.

Dzieje zakupu Czwórki Józefa Chełmońskiego do Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie

At the beginning of October 1879, as part of the celebrations of Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski’s (1812–1887) jubilee, the painter Henryk Siemiradzki (1843–1902) donated his work Pochodnie Nerona (Nero’s Torches) to the Sukiennice gallery.Many Polish painters soon followed in his footsteps, thus founding the collection of the future National Museum in Cracow. The first director of the Museum (in the years 1883–1900) was Wladyslaw Łuszczkiewicz (1828–1900), one of Cracow’s most illustrious personages at that time, an art historian, painter and teacher. Under his directorship the Museum began to buy pictures by contemporary Polish painters. Based on documents from the Museum archive, the article presents the circumstances of purchasing the painting Czworka (Four-in-hand) by one of the most famous and most valued Polish artists, Jozef Chelmonski (1849–1914). This large-format oil-on-canvas work (275 × 660 cm), showing a four-in hand driven with dash by a Ukrainian peasant (fig. 1), is one of the top achievements of naturalism in Polish art. Painted in Paris in 1881, it was purchased from the artist for 3000 silver roubles in 1899. Ever since then, it has been exhibited in Sukiennice, the oldest historical location of the National Museum, and it is now one of the gems of the Museum’s Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Painting.

Malarska „dwujęzyczność” Jerzego Nowosielskiego. Związki między abstrakcją a ikoną w monumentalnych projektach sakralnych

The sacred art of Jerzy Nowosielski, an outstanding Polish painter of the second half of the 20th century, is an example of the creative continuation of the Byzantine tradition in Poland, but also an embodiment of the debate with the painting tradition of the East and with the experience of the Church. Both in theory and in painting practice, the artist redefined the concept of the icon, attempting to expand its formula so that it not only spoke of the Kingdom, but also included the image of the earthly, imperfect reality of the pilgrim Church. In his designs of sacred interiors for churches of various Christian denominations, Nowosielski wanted to combine three theological disciplines and their respective ways of representation: Christology, sophiology and angelology. Beside a classical icon, called by the painter a “Christological- Chalcedonian” icon, Nowosielski demanded a “sophiological” icon, bringing into the space of a church an earthly, painful reality, traces of inner struggle and doubt – hence the presence of doloristic motifs in his icons. The “inspired geometry” also became a complement to the holy images; the artist noticed a huge spiritual potential in abstract painting, to which he eventually assigned the role of icon painting. The poetic concept of “subtle bodies” – abstract angels testifying to the reality of the spiritual world – drew from the early Christian theological thought, which argued about the corporeality of spiritual entities, from Byzantine angelology, the tradition of theosophy and occultism, but also from the art of the first avant-garde, especially that from Eastern Europe, which inherited the Orthodox cult of the image. Nowosielski’s bilingualism as a painter – practicing abstraction and figuration in tandem, including within the church – paralleled the liturgical practice of many religious communities using different languages to express different levels of reality: human affairs and divine affairs. The tradition of apophatic theology, proclaiming the truth about the “unrepresentability” of God, was also important in shaping Nowosielski’s ideas. For Nowosielski’s monumental art, the problem of the mutual relationship between painting and architecture proved crucial. The artist based his concept on the decisive domination of painting over architecture and the independence of monumental painting. His goal was the principle of creating a sacred interior as a holistic, comprehensive vision of space which leads the participants of liturgy “out of everyday life” and into a different, transcendent dimension, in which the painter saw the main purpose of sacred art. From his first projects from the 1950s till the end of his artistic practice Nowosielski tried to realize his own dream version of the “ideal church”. In many of his projects he introduced abstraction into the temple, covering the walls, vaults, presbyteries, sometimes even the floors with a network of triangular “subtle bodies”. Forced to compromise, he introduced sacred abstraction into murals, as accompanying geometries, or into stained glass windows. The interiors, comprehensively and meticulously planned, were supposed to create the effect of “passing through”, “rending the veil” – from behind which a new, heavenly reality dawned. In practice, it was not always possible to achieve this intention, but the artist’s aim was to create an impression of visual unity, a sense of “entering the painting”, of being immersed in the element of painting. Painting in space was supposed to unite a broken world, to combine physical and spiritual reality into an integral whole. When designing sacred interiors, Nowosielski used the sanctity of the icon, but also the pure qualities of painting which were to cause a “mystical feeling of God’s reality”. The aim of sacred art understood in such a way turned out to be initiation rather than teaching. In this shift of emphasis Nowosielski saw the only chance for the revival of sacred art, postulating even a shift of the burden of evangelization from verbal teaching to the work of charismatic art.

W orkiestrze czy solo? Norwid w paryskiej pracowni Juliusza Kossaka

The article discusses the relationship between Cyprian Norwid and the circle of Polish painters gathered around Juliusz Kossak’s Paris studio in the mid-nineteenth century. The starting point is Kossak’s humorous drawing titled Orkiestra artystów [An Orchestra of Artists], which portrays Norwid with his back turned to the viewer and a lyre at his side, depicted among other painters, members of the orchestra, who are playing various musical instruments. On the basis of this composition, which illustrates an anecdote from the life of the exile community of Polish artists, and drawing on other accounts from the period, the article outlines the social situation of the painters, placing Norwid against this background. Emphasising the community of emigration experiences, it is thus also possible to indicate the distinctness of Norwid’s situation, resulting both from his personal traits and the profile of his work, which combines literature and fine arts and is strongly rooted in theoretical reflection.

Nowe znalezisko z Jass jako źródło do analizy obrazu "Chrzest Armenii" pędzla Teodora Axentowicza

New Discovery in Iaşi as a Source for Analysis of the "Picture Baptism" of Armenia by Teodor Axentowicz
 The author compares the oil painting showing the baptism of Thyristates III, King of Armenia, recently found in the Armenian-Apostolic church in Iaşi and attributed (due to the inscription on the back of the canvas) to Teodor Axentowicz, to the work of the same painter on the same subject that is currently displayed in the Roman Catholic church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Gdańsk. He claims that the painting from Iaşi is probably a copy of Axentowicz’s original work from around 1901 and it fully shows his original composition that was intended for the Armenian Catholic altar in the Roman Catholic church in Suceava. By contrast, the painting from Gdańsk only depicts the central part of the original. The reasons for this reduction remain unknown. Perhaps this was done by the buyer to adapt the image to the altar on which it was exhibited, or by the author himself to enhance the artistic value of the new version. The article also talks about the identification of another painting that captured the baptism of the Armenian king. The work was created in Lwów in 1839 by another Polish painter, Feliks Kasper Orlikowski, and it was intended for an unspecified Armenian church in Suceava. It may be that it was meant for the Armenian monastery Hagigadar located in the suburbs of the city.

Why Did Józef Czapski Change His View of the Skamandrites?

The article applies to Józef Czapski’s – a Polish painter and essayist – personal literary choices; ones that often were contrary to the tastes of his generation. In 1942, after leaving the Soviet bloc, Czapski developed the anthology Polskie wiersze wojenne for Russian readers, and the events of the war caused him to change his opinion about the modern poetry. Poems by the Skamandrites, whom he had disregarded for a long time, now became the core of his collection. Having been found a few years back, the anthology was published in 2019.