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

3. Ka^imier^ Sichulski:
Eunatic Cabaret, 1908,
mural. Krakow, Jama
Michalika café. Photo:
Archive of the author.

talents of fin de siècle art, the excellence of exhibi-
tions held by the “Sztuka” Society, combined with
the active involvement of these personalities in the
cultural exchange between salon and café, makes it
possible to distinguish, here in Krakow, a completely
new kind of bohemianism: an exquisite, noble and
even aristocratie bohemianism enjoyed a vogue,
becoming a great source of artistic inspiration.
Worthy of note are some painterly recordings of
scenes from the life of the bohemian circle associ-
ated with the Jama Michalika café. For example, Al-
fons Karpinski portrayed painters-academics sitting
around a round table in the café: Stanislaw Dçbicki,
Karol Frycz, Stanislaw Kamocki, Stefan Filipkiewicz,
Józef Mehoffer, Teodor Axentowicz and Stanislaw
Czajkowski.25 In 1908, Kazimierz Sichulski painted a
monumental canvas Eunatic Cabaret, which décorâtes

25 Painting in the collection of the National Museum in
Wroclaw.
26 Pan Twardowski (Master Twardowski) — in Polish literatuře,
he is a sorcerer who entered a pact with the devil, sold his
soul in exchange for special powers.

the interior of Jama Michalika café to this day [Fig. 3].
It is a collective portrait of the habitués of the café
walking in a cheerful procession towards the moon
where “Master Twardowski” (“Pan Twardowski”)26
awaits them with a cup in his hand. In 1911 — 1936,
the artist made supraportas entitled The Tast Judgement
with caricatures of the Jama Michalika café regulars.
Another frequent customer, Witold Wojtkiewicz,
was the author of a gloomy, pessimistic caricature
entitled Tohemians, of 1903,27 and The Toungest Genera-
tion of Painters Enhancing Their Talents with Coffee in ‘TJ
Kofiary” Café [Fig. 4].28
Ideas inspired by the catastrophic and pessimistic
philosophy of Schopenhauer, the mood of résigna-
tion and disappointment, as well as the lack of belief
in the suprême being, so dear to bohemians, and
propagated by Przybyszewski and Zenon Przesmy-
27 In the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw.
28 làberum Veto, 1904, No. 8, p. 7; more about “U Koziary” café:
MURAWSKA-MUTHESIUS, K. Karykatura kawiarniana
jako medium nowoczesnošci: Jama Michalika w Krakowie
[Café Cartoon as a Medium of Modernity: Jama Michalika
in Krakow]. In: Konteksty, 64, 2010, No. 4, p. 171.

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