DOI article:
Czekalski, Stanisław: Jan Białostocki, Goya's "Third of May", and the aporias of research on the genetic relations of paintings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52534#0100
destruction” which allows for different concretizations
with varying frame figures of the destroyer and the
victim, just like different dramatic events may be-
long to the same basic theme as well.50 51 Therefore,
Bialostocki did not ask about the artistic sources which
Goya might hâve had in his mind while he had been
painting “The Third of May”, but instead referred to
former versions of the frame subject that he had cho-
sen. Particular versions, created at different moments
in time, constitute a sériés of solutions concretizing
a constant pictorial archétype, but — unlike in the case
of Kubler — not necessarily connected by the rela-
tions of influence of one work on another. Within
such a sériés, more typological than genetic, the Scho-
lar associâtes Goya’s work, just for the sake of an ex-
ample, with David Vinckboons’s painting “Humans
Struggling with Death” and “The Triumph of Death”
by Brueghel.
Biatostocki’s thinking about Goya’s painting was
essentially modified by the views of Gombrich who
pointed to the necessity of genetic relationships be-
tween paintings, since every artist trying to repre-
sent something must refer to a spécifie pattern as
a basis of his correction. In a paper on the iconogra-
phy of romanticism, Bialostocki repeated the claim
about the relationship of “The Third of May” with
the iconography of the triumph of death on the level
of the frame subject, but in a footnote he added, sum-
moning Gombrich, that the “relationship with the anti-
Napoleonic folk etchings is also beyond doubt."* After
a longer period of time, the scholar summed up his
considérations on Goya’s work, strengthening the
arguments for both options, the “genealogical" and the
structural-psychological, so that they became even
more opposite to each other.52 On the one hand,
Bialostocki followed the direction indicated by Gom-
brich, accepting the assumption that every artist
must dérivé his painting from some pattern which
art history should be able to recognize. At the same
time, he ignored a remark of the author of “Médita-
tions on the Hobby Horse” that an outstanding ar-
50 See BIALOSTOCKI 1961 (see in note 34), p. 159 and
BIALOSTOCKI 1961 (see in note 46), pp. 160-161.
51 BIALOSTOCKI 1982 (see in note 37), p. 355. The paper was
actually written in 1963-
tist may correct the initial schéma so radically, that
his work will not be similar to it at ail. Bialostocki
assumed that the pattern actually used by Goya is
some painting which is possibly the closest to “The
Third of May”, so that “if one is to make a choice between
the etchings of Porter, referred to by Gombrich, and Paul
Revere’s ‘The Bloody Massacre’ as Goya’s possible inspira-
tions, the American etching must be chosen without any
doubt."™ Hence, his conclusion is that for each pain-
ting one should identify a spécifie iconographie source,
the most similar to it in terms of form and content,
by the same token reducing the range of the sche-
ma’s correction. On the other hand, though, Biato-
stocki did not give up his effort to dérivé the painting
from an archétypal source through which (and not
through the repertory of works remembered by the
artist) it is related to other, earlier and later, concre-
tizations of the same archétype or frame subject. Con-
sequently, the scholar freely multiplied the examples
of parallel works placed in the same frame of form
and content, next to those mentioned before refer-
ring also to the représentation of the martyrdom of
saints, such as “The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian” by
Hans Memling, renderings of the subject of shooting
at the father’s corpse, Callot’s “Execution of the Ma-
rauders”, and finally two versions of “The Execution
of Russian Patriots by the French in Moscow in 1812”,
one assigned to Vassily Sazonov, the other to Mikhail
Tikhonov, both painted a year before Goya’s “Exe-
cution of the Insurgents”. Bialostocki was particular-
ly intrigued by the two Russian paintings from far-
away Petersburg. They made him believe that an in-
terprétation of the Spaniard’s work as a correction of
the etching by Paul Revere was not satisfying and
that “one should not put too much emphasis on such direct
relationships. ... The problém cannot be ... so easily dis-
carded, when we realize that the artists ... who had no
contact, working thousands of kilometers apart, used
a similar schéma.”* In such a case, a genetic relation-
ship of a direct or indirect dérivation from the same
source is extremely unlikely, while the analogies con-
52 BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Pluton egzekucyjny od Paula Revere do
Goyi (1981): In: Symbole i obrazy... 1982 (see in note 32).
53 Ibidem, p. 414.
54 Ibidem.
98
with varying frame figures of the destroyer and the
victim, just like different dramatic events may be-
long to the same basic theme as well.50 51 Therefore,
Bialostocki did not ask about the artistic sources which
Goya might hâve had in his mind while he had been
painting “The Third of May”, but instead referred to
former versions of the frame subject that he had cho-
sen. Particular versions, created at different moments
in time, constitute a sériés of solutions concretizing
a constant pictorial archétype, but — unlike in the case
of Kubler — not necessarily connected by the rela-
tions of influence of one work on another. Within
such a sériés, more typological than genetic, the Scho-
lar associâtes Goya’s work, just for the sake of an ex-
ample, with David Vinckboons’s painting “Humans
Struggling with Death” and “The Triumph of Death”
by Brueghel.
Biatostocki’s thinking about Goya’s painting was
essentially modified by the views of Gombrich who
pointed to the necessity of genetic relationships be-
tween paintings, since every artist trying to repre-
sent something must refer to a spécifie pattern as
a basis of his correction. In a paper on the iconogra-
phy of romanticism, Bialostocki repeated the claim
about the relationship of “The Third of May” with
the iconography of the triumph of death on the level
of the frame subject, but in a footnote he added, sum-
moning Gombrich, that the “relationship with the anti-
Napoleonic folk etchings is also beyond doubt."* After
a longer period of time, the scholar summed up his
considérations on Goya’s work, strengthening the
arguments for both options, the “genealogical" and the
structural-psychological, so that they became even
more opposite to each other.52 On the one hand,
Bialostocki followed the direction indicated by Gom-
brich, accepting the assumption that every artist
must dérivé his painting from some pattern which
art history should be able to recognize. At the same
time, he ignored a remark of the author of “Médita-
tions on the Hobby Horse” that an outstanding ar-
50 See BIALOSTOCKI 1961 (see in note 34), p. 159 and
BIALOSTOCKI 1961 (see in note 46), pp. 160-161.
51 BIALOSTOCKI 1982 (see in note 37), p. 355. The paper was
actually written in 1963-
tist may correct the initial schéma so radically, that
his work will not be similar to it at ail. Bialostocki
assumed that the pattern actually used by Goya is
some painting which is possibly the closest to “The
Third of May”, so that “if one is to make a choice between
the etchings of Porter, referred to by Gombrich, and Paul
Revere’s ‘The Bloody Massacre’ as Goya’s possible inspira-
tions, the American etching must be chosen without any
doubt."™ Hence, his conclusion is that for each pain-
ting one should identify a spécifie iconographie source,
the most similar to it in terms of form and content,
by the same token reducing the range of the sche-
ma’s correction. On the other hand, though, Biato-
stocki did not give up his effort to dérivé the painting
from an archétypal source through which (and not
through the repertory of works remembered by the
artist) it is related to other, earlier and later, concre-
tizations of the same archétype or frame subject. Con-
sequently, the scholar freely multiplied the examples
of parallel works placed in the same frame of form
and content, next to those mentioned before refer-
ring also to the représentation of the martyrdom of
saints, such as “The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian” by
Hans Memling, renderings of the subject of shooting
at the father’s corpse, Callot’s “Execution of the Ma-
rauders”, and finally two versions of “The Execution
of Russian Patriots by the French in Moscow in 1812”,
one assigned to Vassily Sazonov, the other to Mikhail
Tikhonov, both painted a year before Goya’s “Exe-
cution of the Insurgents”. Bialostocki was particular-
ly intrigued by the two Russian paintings from far-
away Petersburg. They made him believe that an in-
terprétation of the Spaniard’s work as a correction of
the etching by Paul Revere was not satisfying and
that “one should not put too much emphasis on such direct
relationships. ... The problém cannot be ... so easily dis-
carded, when we realize that the artists ... who had no
contact, working thousands of kilometers apart, used
a similar schéma.”* In such a case, a genetic relation-
ship of a direct or indirect dérivation from the same
source is extremely unlikely, while the analogies con-
52 BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Pluton egzekucyjny od Paula Revere do
Goyi (1981): In: Symbole i obrazy... 1982 (see in note 32).
53 Ibidem, p. 414.
54 Ibidem.
98