Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (43.2010)

in the author's study of the Nereids in the Sigismund
Chapel. The narration does not begin hete with the
titular chapel, but with a présentation of ancient sar-
cophaguses with the images of the so called sea 77k-
which makes the Cracow low reliefs but a chain
in the centuries-long iconographie sequenceH The
article devoted to the issue of is an example
of the author's ambition to present a single Issue in
a comprehensive and exhaustive wayT The crowning
of the thus conceived studies could be a history of
art as seen from the iconographie perspective;^ the
latter approach was postulated by the scholar who
had even presented its tentative outlinef '
Thus Jan Bialostocki was focused on great and
vast issues which recur throughout history. He was
interested in categories that are capable of capturing
the historical processes in their most general and fun-
damental forms, such as or
He wrote about 'JHir
in art history, about replicas and copies, about sym-
metry in visual arts as well as about ways of present-
ing time as carriers of meaningT The conception of
the encompassing theme also constituted an attempt
to work out a general iconographie category which
would be capable of explaining the persistent récur-
rence of certain formal présentations; it did so by
pointing out to a permanent link between composi-

BIALOSTOCKI, J.: The Sea-Thiasos in Renaissance Sepul-
chral Art. In: bLAA A Rř^Art^rř B^rc^ř Hn*
AHAHyy BA^A HP 617* BAAk^y. London [a.o.] 1967, pp.
69-74.
' BIALOSTOCKI, j.: Vanitas: z dziejów obrazowania idei
"marnošci" i "p^^^GLa" w poezji i sztuce [Vanitas: On
the History of the Présentation of the Concepts of "Vanity"
and "Passing" in Poetry and Art]. In: TiT, pp. 105-136.
^ BIALOSTOCKI, ].: Romantische Ikonographie. In:
BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Köln 1981, p. 214.
' BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Skizze einer Geschichte der beab-
sichtigen und der interpretierenden Ikonographie. In: KA-
EMMERLING, E. (ed.): Hc/zoAgA.
— BAAhTAyg — PrfVřWř.' BiAř^A Ar Vol.
1. Köln 1979, pp. 16-42.
i' BIALOSTOCKI 1987 (see in note 8), pp. 11-17.
' ' BIALOSTOCKI, J.: O faktach i uogólnieniach historii sztuki
[On Facts and Generalizations in Art History]. In: RiS I, pp.

tion and the expressed idea, regardless of the detailed
theme of a concrète work of artH Bialostocki often
undertook to carry out synthèses of controversial
or contentious problems which often possessed
vast literary sources that were contradictory in their
conclusions. Such was the origin of his studies de-
voted to Late Gothic, Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo
or Romanticisme^ In the above studies, Bialostocki
always drew attention to the pluralism of the analyzed
phenomena; he pointed to their polymorphie charac-
ter, to the co-existence of innovative and traditionalist
tendencies in them. He also tried to prove that history,
and in particular the history of the human thought
and creativity, is never one-dimensional and that it
is impossible for one to present it in the form of a
single, all-explaining formula.
Thinking in global categories and trying to in-
troduce order into general phenomena, the scholar
needed concepts that would be able to ensure the
right tectonics to the erected edihee. He thought
about them already in the 1950s and getting ac-
quainted with Kubler's book only assured him that
he was heading in the right direction. In a treatise
devoted to traditions and iconographie transforma-
tions, he, among others, wrote: "TH/
ATT fTTAAk, /Zet A ihr //GZf owT
/Lre 7/ h A coAkAAA/ 0/
247-254; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: O replikách i kopiach - dawniej
i dziš [On Replicas and Copies - In the Old Times and Today].
In: RiS II, pp. 225-233; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Uwagi o symetrii
w sztukach wizualnych [Some Comments on Symmetry in
Visual Arts]. In: RiS II, pp. 62-69; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Modi
di rappresentare il tempo nelle arti visive corne veicoli del
signiheanto. In: hcv'tA A' Aonh AkhAi? A íWčw A Ro^řrA GZAA
Firenze 1984, pp. 589-594.
BIALOSTOCKI, ].: Encompassing Thèmes and Archétypal
Images. In: HAřHwAnnL, 10,1965, pp. 275-284.
^ BIALOSTOCKI, [.: Spory o póány gotyk [Arguments Con-
cerning Late Gothic]. In: SiMH, pp. 93-118; BIALOSTOC-
KI, J.: Pojçcie manieryzmu i sztuka polská [The Concept
of Mannerism and Polish Art], In: 5W, pp. 190-211;
BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Two Types of International Manner-
ism: Italian and Northern. In: L9AAÁ, 18, 1970, pp. 105-
109; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Rokoko: ornament, styl i postawa
[Rococo: Ornament, Style and Attitude], In: RiS I, pp. 158-
177; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Romantyzm malarski w Polsce i w
Europie [Romanticism in Painting in Poland and Europe].
In: RiS I, pp. 80-89.

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