Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (45.2012)

7. Paon: a huge canvas covered with caricatures and short poems bp habitués of the Café Paon, 1896 — 1901, oil, pencil, crayon on canvas, 226 X
600 cm. Krakow, National Museum. Photo: Archive of the museum.

of the Young Poland bohemianism. Legends and
rumours attracted the public to Paon, as everyone
wanted to see the femme fatale, that is, Dagny Przy-
byszewska, especially that “ail Poland talked about the
Prfybyspewski couple at that time”’.20
After Turlihski went bankrupt, Krakow’s bohemi-
ans moved to Jan Michalik’s pâtisserie in Florianska
Street, where in 1905 the literary cabaret Zielony
Balonik (Green Balloon) came into existence. The
Krakow literary, artistic, theatrical and journalistic
dites chose it as a venue for their meetings. And
again, to quote the already-mentioned Tadeusz Boy-
Zelenski, “the ignorant Krakow was again outraged about
the meetings held in the Jama Michalika café. Bigots and
matrons began to gossip. There were rumours about orgies,
dancingnaked, etc’ Nevertheless, Zielony Balonik was
soon to become “Krakow’s darling, a kind of authority,
especially when it came to artistic issues”. Fascinated with
it, citizens of Warsaw, Lviv and Vienna arrived for
first nights of new plays, and the snobbish, narrow-
minded locals soon started to enjoy going there, too.
Bohemian artists were also involved in the interior

20 KRZYŽANOWSKI, M.: Wspomnienia ksiçgarza [Memories
of a Bookseller]. In: Kopiecwspomnieň (see in note 15), pp. 144,
147.
21 See also KOSSOWSKA, I.: A Smile of Modernisai: Polish
Caricature 1900 — 1914. In: Centropa: A Journal of Central Eu-
ropean Architecture and Pelated Arts, 4, 2004, No. 1, pp. 42-43.

design and décor of Jama Michalika café: paintings,
polychromes, furniture and stained-glass Windows.
In 1905, a special exhibition was held there, námely
the 9* parodie “Sztuka” display, which was a unique
form of the artistic démonstration of bohemianism
and the circle’s response to the official 9th exhibition
of the elitist “Sztuka” Society of Polish Artists,
organised at the Krakow Palace of Arts. It showed
caricatures of prominent figures associated with
the “Sztuka” Society as well as pastiches by the
young graphie artists Karol Frycz and Kazimierz
Sichulski.21 The last trace of the bohemian presence
in Jan Michalik’s pâtisserie, in the fourth year of the
existence of the cabaret, was the décoration of its
interior. This is how another phenomenon of the
Young Poland era came into existence, that is the en-
tire interior design of the café (preserved to this day)
[Fig. 2], Walls were covered with caricatures, both in
the form of tiny sketches and monumental panneaux.
What is more, Karol Frycz produced designs for the
furniture, doors, Windows, stained-glass Windows, a
fireplace, candelabra, lamps, tables and chairs.22
22 CROWLEY, D.: National Style and Nation-State. Design in Poland
from the Vernacular Revival to the International Style. Manchester
- New York 1992, pp. 35-36; MURAWSKA-MUTHESIUS,
K.: Michalik’s Café in Krakow: Café and Caricature as Media
of Modernity. In: ASHBY, C. - GRONBERG, T. - SHAW-
-MILLER, S. (eds.): The Viennese Café and Fin-de-Siècle Culture.
New York 2013 (forthcoming).

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