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DOI Artikel:Nieciecki, Jan: "Polski Wersal" - Białystok Jana Klemensa Branickiego
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49351#0322
314
Jan Nieciecki
The Gardens of the ‘Polish ’ Yersaiłles
In 18th-century Europę Białystok was named ‘the
Polish Versailles’. It was designated the residence
of hetman Jan Klemens Branicki and was due in the
first category universal wonder which this pałace,
as well as to a greater extent the gardens and parks
awokened. The second cause for which Branicki’s
residence was referred to as the ‘Polish Yersaiłles’
was its Frenchness. For this reception of it arose out
of the undoubted Parisian influences, or those based
on the Parisian model and on the palace’s furnish-
ing. However, to a significantly greater degree this
opinion was determined by the French style of liv-
ing conducted at the hetman ’s court. As a young
man, J. K. Branicki had frequented the France of
Louis XIV which had shaped his upbringing. To
France in its predilections and politics he was to
remain faithful to his death. Fle was a Francophile
and, while not being actually French, such were
his surroundings. The French artists employed by
the hetman were few, while of his gardeners not
one came from France.
The Białystok ‘Yersaiłles’ was not created in
France but ‘under the skies’ of the Polish-Lithuanian
Respublica. It was for this reason ałso that the
French world merged here with that of old Poland,
which included even certain Asiatic characteristics.
J. K. Branicki in his artistic activities modelled
himself on French art, which means that his residence
in Podlasia was a scaled down copy of Louis XIV’s
Yersaiłles. In the hetman’s undertakings may be
found a repetition taken from French royal preroga-
tives, but these appeared in generał in details and not
in larger wholes (this comment does not negate the
fact that the pałace at Białystok was shaped in its gen-
erał conception on the model of Yersaiłles, while its
closer and morę distant surroundings were composed
according to the principles established by Le Nótre).
At the ‘Polish Yersaiłles’ borrowing on a larger
scalę from the residence of Louis XIV may be
observed only in the garden sculptures. According
to the inventory of 1772, in the Białystok gardens
immediately adjacent to the pałace there were
122 sculptures (as well as 41 sculptures decorating
the building’s exteriors and garden constructions);
of the figural sculptures barely seven have re-
mained. For almost all of them, as well as for sev-
eral sculptures which may be identified in 18th-cen-
tury prints and drawings, prototypes originating
from among the sculptures of Louis XIV’s gardens
at Yersaiłles and Marły have been identified.
The sculptures at Białystok may, however, be
distinguished from their antiąue-French models,
having been executed by Jan Chryzostom Redler,
a sculptor whose works represent separate artistic
styles from French ones. Artists such as Redler were
the predominant kind to be found at the court
of Branicki. In the process of a given work of art’s
creation, the hetman managed to retain a balance
between his trivial interferences and holding in
respect the individuality of those, especially distin-
guished artists, serving him.
Apart from this, the creators of the ‘Polish
Yersaiłles’ had to apply the models of the French
Yersaiłles to local climatic and topographical con-
ditions, the demands of hetman court etiąuette and
the Polish tradition of raising lordly manors, and
also to take into account the pre-existing pałace with
its surroundings as laid out by Tilman van Gameren.
The hetman Branicki and artists working for him
created a residence, for which a search for any di-
rect model in Europę would be in vain.
This article includes a map recently prepared by
the author of the residence at Białystok during the
period of J. K. Branicki’s office (1720-71). This
map (ill. 8) depicts only the palace’s immediate
surroundings, sińce the residence also embraced
terrain laid out between three and four kilometres
around it, and yet further afield, at Choroszcz,
Tykocin, the palaces at Stołowacz, Hołowiesk and
Lada. The entire countryside around Białystok, as
at Yersaiłles, was turned into a senes of centrahsed
Systems stretching out into ‘infmity’. The ‘Polish
Yersaiłles’ was, therefore, faithful to the principles
established by Andre Le Nótre.
Translated by Peter Martyn
Jan Nieciecki
The Gardens of the ‘Polish ’ Yersaiłles
In 18th-century Europę Białystok was named ‘the
Polish Versailles’. It was designated the residence
of hetman Jan Klemens Branicki and was due in the
first category universal wonder which this pałace,
as well as to a greater extent the gardens and parks
awokened. The second cause for which Branicki’s
residence was referred to as the ‘Polish Yersaiłles’
was its Frenchness. For this reception of it arose out
of the undoubted Parisian influences, or those based
on the Parisian model and on the palace’s furnish-
ing. However, to a significantly greater degree this
opinion was determined by the French style of liv-
ing conducted at the hetman ’s court. As a young
man, J. K. Branicki had frequented the France of
Louis XIV which had shaped his upbringing. To
France in its predilections and politics he was to
remain faithful to his death. Fle was a Francophile
and, while not being actually French, such were
his surroundings. The French artists employed by
the hetman were few, while of his gardeners not
one came from France.
The Białystok ‘Yersaiłles’ was not created in
France but ‘under the skies’ of the Polish-Lithuanian
Respublica. It was for this reason ałso that the
French world merged here with that of old Poland,
which included even certain Asiatic characteristics.
J. K. Branicki in his artistic activities modelled
himself on French art, which means that his residence
in Podlasia was a scaled down copy of Louis XIV’s
Yersaiłles. In the hetman’s undertakings may be
found a repetition taken from French royal preroga-
tives, but these appeared in generał in details and not
in larger wholes (this comment does not negate the
fact that the pałace at Białystok was shaped in its gen-
erał conception on the model of Yersaiłles, while its
closer and morę distant surroundings were composed
according to the principles established by Le Nótre).
At the ‘Polish Yersaiłles’ borrowing on a larger
scalę from the residence of Louis XIV may be
observed only in the garden sculptures. According
to the inventory of 1772, in the Białystok gardens
immediately adjacent to the pałace there were
122 sculptures (as well as 41 sculptures decorating
the building’s exteriors and garden constructions);
of the figural sculptures barely seven have re-
mained. For almost all of them, as well as for sev-
eral sculptures which may be identified in 18th-cen-
tury prints and drawings, prototypes originating
from among the sculptures of Louis XIV’s gardens
at Yersaiłles and Marły have been identified.
The sculptures at Białystok may, however, be
distinguished from their antiąue-French models,
having been executed by Jan Chryzostom Redler,
a sculptor whose works represent separate artistic
styles from French ones. Artists such as Redler were
the predominant kind to be found at the court
of Branicki. In the process of a given work of art’s
creation, the hetman managed to retain a balance
between his trivial interferences and holding in
respect the individuality of those, especially distin-
guished artists, serving him.
Apart from this, the creators of the ‘Polish
Yersaiłles’ had to apply the models of the French
Yersaiłles to local climatic and topographical con-
ditions, the demands of hetman court etiąuette and
the Polish tradition of raising lordly manors, and
also to take into account the pre-existing pałace with
its surroundings as laid out by Tilman van Gameren.
The hetman Branicki and artists working for him
created a residence, for which a search for any di-
rect model in Europę would be in vain.
This article includes a map recently prepared by
the author of the residence at Białystok during the
period of J. K. Branicki’s office (1720-71). This
map (ill. 8) depicts only the palace’s immediate
surroundings, sińce the residence also embraced
terrain laid out between three and four kilometres
around it, and yet further afield, at Choroszcz,
Tykocin, the palaces at Stołowacz, Hołowiesk and
Lada. The entire countryside around Białystok, as
at Yersaiłles, was turned into a senes of centrahsed
Systems stretching out into ‘infmity’. The ‘Polish
Yersaiłles’ was, therefore, faithful to the principles
established by Andre Le Nótre.
Translated by Peter Martyn