DOI Heft:
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DOI Artikel:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: The myth of bohemianism in nineteenth-century Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51715#0197
simply the Parisian one. Unlike the latter, “itwas born
not out of the détritus of apathy and moral décliné, but it
rose on the charred ruins of destruction, fed by its nourishing
ashed\u It remains to be examined however, whether
this fusion of the social, aesthetic and political could
be identified as a long-standing feature of bohemian-
ism in Poland, generated, as it were, by the conditions
of subjugation to foreign power.
The Olszyňski Group
and the Self-Image of the Artist
The first Warsaw bohème before its dissolution
in 1842 attracted a range of very diverse “fellow
travellers”. Among them was the Journalist Waclaw
Szymanowski [Fig. 5], mentioned above, who, after
his early expérience with the unruly poets, promptiy
climbed the ladder of the journalistic profession,
becoming the editor in chief of the largest Warsaw
daily Kurier Wars^awski. At the other end of the Spec-
trum stood a very remarkable Polish poet, prolific
draftsman as well as sharp caricaturist, Cyprian Kamil
Norwid, who left Warsaw in 1842 and died in poverty
in Paris.24 25 Even if only a few caricature sketches by
Norwid, datable to this period, could be identified,
it seems apt to emphasise at this point that carica-
ture, was “discovered” anew and chosen by the early
bohemians as a privileged mode of expression. As-
sociated with rébellion against the authority and the
canon, peripheral to high art and oscillating between
text and image, and sometimes identified as a liter-
ary genre, caricature was the medium answering the
quest for alternative forms of représentation, both
verbal and visual, and proved eminently suitable to
be performed, like a joke, amongst the company of
24 Ibidem, p. 257.
25 On Norwid, see CHLEBOWSKA, E.: IPSE IPSUM. O
autoportretach Cypriana Nonrida |IPSE IPSUM. On Cyprian
Norwid’s Self-Portraits], Lublin 2004.
26 On caricature performed at a café table, see MURAWSKA-
-MUTHESIUS, K.: Michalik’s Café in Krakow: Café and
Caricature as Media of Modernity. In: ASHBY, C. — GRON-
BERG, T. — SHAW-MILLER, S. (eds.): The Uienne.se Café and
Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York 2013 (forthcoming).
27 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), p. 109 and notes, pp.
293-305.
friends, at a café table.26 27 And unsurprisingly, amongst
the painters attracted by Filleborn and Wolski, quite
a few showed a special talent for it. One of them
was Tadeusz Brodowski, who produced caricatures
generously for the amusement of his companions,
either on handy sheets of paper which were awaiting
the guests at Miramka’s tavern, or on any other suit-
able surfaces, such as the famous entrance door and
walls of Seweryn Filleborn’s apartment. Brodowski
covered them with a gallery of humorous and stränge
images, which, according to Szymanowski, depicted
“animais unheard off people in costumes ne ver seen in this
world, symbols not to be explained'd-1 Born into a noble
family as the son of the celebrated Warsaw portraitist
Antoni Brodowski, he was trained privately, and left
Warsaw to complété his éducation abroad. Moving
first to Rome in 1841, he then went on to Paris,
where he studied in the atelier of Horace Vernet,
and excelled in painting horses and battles. Tadeusz
Brodowski remained in Paris until the end of his
short life, dying at the age of 27, reportedly from
intempérance. And indeed, excess of alcohol, one
of the signifiers of bohemian life-style,28 appeared
to be the most common weakness amongst this
coterie of Warsaw poets, affecting also the associ-
ated painters, most notably Ignacy Gierdziejewski,
who dropped his studies at the Warsaw School
of Fine Arts, becoming later the member of the
Olszyňski group. This late Romantic, apart from his
fatal addiction to vodka, shared with the bohemian
poets also the longing for the otherworldly and the
fantastic, and drew the topics for his compositions
from romande poetry, folk taies, and Slavic histo-
riés, occasionally harking back to the Nazarenes.
His religious compositions and fantastic allégories,
28 Seweryn Filleborn, who died prematurely in 1850 in the
age of 35, might hâve referred to the Murgerian concept
of water-drinkers when, following his doctor’s advice to
drink water only and run a healthy life style, he set up in his
flat an installation imitating a ''miniaturepine-tree foresf’, with
tree branches stuck in a layer of sand strewn on the floor;
the essence of his joke was that the miniature form of the
forest was, inevitably, matched by the “miniature form” of
water, which, in Polish spelled “wódka”, meaning vodka.
- GOMULICKI, W: Cyganerya warszawska. Bajki o niej i
prawda [The Warsaw Bohemia. Truth and Fiction]. Part 2.
In: Tygodnik Ilustrovaný, 52, 1911, No. 43, p. 853.
189
not out of the détritus of apathy and moral décliné, but it
rose on the charred ruins of destruction, fed by its nourishing
ashed\u It remains to be examined however, whether
this fusion of the social, aesthetic and political could
be identified as a long-standing feature of bohemian-
ism in Poland, generated, as it were, by the conditions
of subjugation to foreign power.
The Olszyňski Group
and the Self-Image of the Artist
The first Warsaw bohème before its dissolution
in 1842 attracted a range of very diverse “fellow
travellers”. Among them was the Journalist Waclaw
Szymanowski [Fig. 5], mentioned above, who, after
his early expérience with the unruly poets, promptiy
climbed the ladder of the journalistic profession,
becoming the editor in chief of the largest Warsaw
daily Kurier Wars^awski. At the other end of the Spec-
trum stood a very remarkable Polish poet, prolific
draftsman as well as sharp caricaturist, Cyprian Kamil
Norwid, who left Warsaw in 1842 and died in poverty
in Paris.24 25 Even if only a few caricature sketches by
Norwid, datable to this period, could be identified,
it seems apt to emphasise at this point that carica-
ture, was “discovered” anew and chosen by the early
bohemians as a privileged mode of expression. As-
sociated with rébellion against the authority and the
canon, peripheral to high art and oscillating between
text and image, and sometimes identified as a liter-
ary genre, caricature was the medium answering the
quest for alternative forms of représentation, both
verbal and visual, and proved eminently suitable to
be performed, like a joke, amongst the company of
24 Ibidem, p. 257.
25 On Norwid, see CHLEBOWSKA, E.: IPSE IPSUM. O
autoportretach Cypriana Nonrida |IPSE IPSUM. On Cyprian
Norwid’s Self-Portraits], Lublin 2004.
26 On caricature performed at a café table, see MURAWSKA-
-MUTHESIUS, K.: Michalik’s Café in Krakow: Café and
Caricature as Media of Modernity. In: ASHBY, C. — GRON-
BERG, T. — SHAW-MILLER, S. (eds.): The Uienne.se Café and
Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York 2013 (forthcoming).
27 GOMULICKI 1964 (see in note 11), p. 109 and notes, pp.
293-305.
friends, at a café table.26 27 And unsurprisingly, amongst
the painters attracted by Filleborn and Wolski, quite
a few showed a special talent for it. One of them
was Tadeusz Brodowski, who produced caricatures
generously for the amusement of his companions,
either on handy sheets of paper which were awaiting
the guests at Miramka’s tavern, or on any other suit-
able surfaces, such as the famous entrance door and
walls of Seweryn Filleborn’s apartment. Brodowski
covered them with a gallery of humorous and stränge
images, which, according to Szymanowski, depicted
“animais unheard off people in costumes ne ver seen in this
world, symbols not to be explained'd-1 Born into a noble
family as the son of the celebrated Warsaw portraitist
Antoni Brodowski, he was trained privately, and left
Warsaw to complété his éducation abroad. Moving
first to Rome in 1841, he then went on to Paris,
where he studied in the atelier of Horace Vernet,
and excelled in painting horses and battles. Tadeusz
Brodowski remained in Paris until the end of his
short life, dying at the age of 27, reportedly from
intempérance. And indeed, excess of alcohol, one
of the signifiers of bohemian life-style,28 appeared
to be the most common weakness amongst this
coterie of Warsaw poets, affecting also the associ-
ated painters, most notably Ignacy Gierdziejewski,
who dropped his studies at the Warsaw School
of Fine Arts, becoming later the member of the
Olszyňski group. This late Romantic, apart from his
fatal addiction to vodka, shared with the bohemian
poets also the longing for the otherworldly and the
fantastic, and drew the topics for his compositions
from romande poetry, folk taies, and Slavic histo-
riés, occasionally harking back to the Nazarenes.
His religious compositions and fantastic allégories,
28 Seweryn Filleborn, who died prematurely in 1850 in the
age of 35, might hâve referred to the Murgerian concept
of water-drinkers when, following his doctor’s advice to
drink water only and run a healthy life style, he set up in his
flat an installation imitating a ''miniaturepine-tree foresf’, with
tree branches stuck in a layer of sand strewn on the floor;
the essence of his joke was that the miniature form of the
forest was, inevitably, matched by the “miniature form” of
water, which, in Polish spelled “wódka”, meaning vodka.
- GOMULICKI, W: Cyganerya warszawska. Bajki o niej i
prawda [The Warsaw Bohemia. Truth and Fiction]. Part 2.
In: Tygodnik Ilustrovaný, 52, 1911, No. 43, p. 853.
189