DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Artykuły i Komunikaty
DOI article:Kłudkiewicz, Kamila: Kolekcjonerstwo europejskie na przełomie XIX i XX wieku: Szkic o różnorodności gustów oraz stosunku kolekcjonerów do sztuki współczesnej*
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70770#0263
260
Kamila Kłudkiewicz
European Collecting at the Turn of the 19th and 20th
Centuries. Sketches on the Variety of Tastes and
Collectors ’ Attitude to Contemporary Art
Throughout the 19th century art collecting became a
more and more popular human activity, not restricted
as before to a small group - aristocrats, nobility, and
scholars-researchers. The universal character of
colleting was associated with, e.g., a growing
number of museums in the Old Continent, their
development and professionalization; however also
with the dynamically developing art market and
availability of its products. The complex character
of private collecting in the 19th century is the reason
why researchers are only attracted by its single
aspects. These including first of all the collecting by
new social groups: the bourgeoisie, rich indus-
trialists, and bankers. Art historians are additionally
interested in those collecting works of the new
breakthrough artistic tendencies (Impressionism,
Post-Impressionism, Avant-Garde), therefore those
who were involved in creating ‘collections looking
into the future’, as Krzysztof Pomian calls them
(collections tournees vers Vavenirf setting up
benchmarks that future museums would aspire to.
Emphasizing the innovatory choices of
collectors preferring new artistic tendencies leads to
narrowing the picture of private collecting in the 19th
century. What disappears are collections of
European aristocrats, for centuries privileged and
leading in their position of patrons and collectors,
who obviously continued to form their collections
still in the 19th century. I call the latter ‘history
collections’, as they were characterized by a peculiar
approach to the past. For aristocrats the past was the
value serving as the grounds for the present. The
laws and commitments formulated in the past
constituted for them foundations for functioning of
society. Such an attitude resulted from the ideology
of the 19th-century European conservatism, based on
two major mottos: history and tradition. ‘History
collections’ were thus made up of objects from the
past turning into carriers of tradition, lasting, and
continuity.
History collections included two types of
artifacts. The first were objects generally related to
history, events, and historic figures, the second
included works of art. Contemporary art took an
important place in collectors’ interest at the turn of
the 19th and 20th century, while aristocrats’ interest
in contemporary painting most clearly manifest the
differences between their taste and predilections of
the collectors focusing on the new tendencies.
Aristocrats happened to choose works showing a
subsequent stage in art development, as what they
found in contemporary art were first of all its historic
roots. Aristocrats were not interested in new
tendencies for which it was impossible to
demonstrate sources in art history, and in the late 19th
century Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and
later Avant-Garde were regarded as such. They were
not interested in revolutionary trends, tendencies
‘without history’.
Aristocratic predilections for contemporary art
are illustrated by the choices of the Greater Poland
collector Edward Aleksander Count Raczyński,
author of the collection of contemporary Polish and
European painting in Rogalin near Poznan. His
collection of European painting proves that the
collector’s taste oscillated around three major
phenomena of artistic Paris of the late 19th century:
exhibitions of Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts; the
group referred to as Ta bande noire’; and the Societe
Nouvelle Association. It was art which found
interest among officials: organizers of the 1990 Paris
World Exhibition; clerks of the state cultural
administration; yet first of all of Leonce Benedite,
director of the Paris museum of living artists, Musee
de Luxembourg. It was also art for which models
were found in the painting of the previous
generations. Considered as the continuation of the
transformation which took place throughout the
whole century in French painting, its roots were
being found in mid-19th century.
Confrontation of the choices of Count Raczyński
together with a brief characteristic of European
collectors, at the turn of the 19th and 20th century
interested in new artistic trends, proves that the new
art was a subject of interest of Paris, Berlin, and
Moscow businessmen, bourgeoisie, and financiers
who promoted such values as innovation, novelty,
and progress. Meanwhile, aristocracy valued other
qualities more (tradition, history, past) and in those
European cities (London, Cracow, Vienna) in which
aristocracy held a strong position and were
committed to cultural activity, collections of pieces
of the new tendencies could hardly be found, or were
extremely rare.
Translated by Mgdalena Iwińska
Kamila Kłudkiewicz
European Collecting at the Turn of the 19th and 20th
Centuries. Sketches on the Variety of Tastes and
Collectors ’ Attitude to Contemporary Art
Throughout the 19th century art collecting became a
more and more popular human activity, not restricted
as before to a small group - aristocrats, nobility, and
scholars-researchers. The universal character of
colleting was associated with, e.g., a growing
number of museums in the Old Continent, their
development and professionalization; however also
with the dynamically developing art market and
availability of its products. The complex character
of private collecting in the 19th century is the reason
why researchers are only attracted by its single
aspects. These including first of all the collecting by
new social groups: the bourgeoisie, rich indus-
trialists, and bankers. Art historians are additionally
interested in those collecting works of the new
breakthrough artistic tendencies (Impressionism,
Post-Impressionism, Avant-Garde), therefore those
who were involved in creating ‘collections looking
into the future’, as Krzysztof Pomian calls them
(collections tournees vers Vavenirf setting up
benchmarks that future museums would aspire to.
Emphasizing the innovatory choices of
collectors preferring new artistic tendencies leads to
narrowing the picture of private collecting in the 19th
century. What disappears are collections of
European aristocrats, for centuries privileged and
leading in their position of patrons and collectors,
who obviously continued to form their collections
still in the 19th century. I call the latter ‘history
collections’, as they were characterized by a peculiar
approach to the past. For aristocrats the past was the
value serving as the grounds for the present. The
laws and commitments formulated in the past
constituted for them foundations for functioning of
society. Such an attitude resulted from the ideology
of the 19th-century European conservatism, based on
two major mottos: history and tradition. ‘History
collections’ were thus made up of objects from the
past turning into carriers of tradition, lasting, and
continuity.
History collections included two types of
artifacts. The first were objects generally related to
history, events, and historic figures, the second
included works of art. Contemporary art took an
important place in collectors’ interest at the turn of
the 19th and 20th century, while aristocrats’ interest
in contemporary painting most clearly manifest the
differences between their taste and predilections of
the collectors focusing on the new tendencies.
Aristocrats happened to choose works showing a
subsequent stage in art development, as what they
found in contemporary art were first of all its historic
roots. Aristocrats were not interested in new
tendencies for which it was impossible to
demonstrate sources in art history, and in the late 19th
century Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and
later Avant-Garde were regarded as such. They were
not interested in revolutionary trends, tendencies
‘without history’.
Aristocratic predilections for contemporary art
are illustrated by the choices of the Greater Poland
collector Edward Aleksander Count Raczyński,
author of the collection of contemporary Polish and
European painting in Rogalin near Poznan. His
collection of European painting proves that the
collector’s taste oscillated around three major
phenomena of artistic Paris of the late 19th century:
exhibitions of Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts; the
group referred to as Ta bande noire’; and the Societe
Nouvelle Association. It was art which found
interest among officials: organizers of the 1990 Paris
World Exhibition; clerks of the state cultural
administration; yet first of all of Leonce Benedite,
director of the Paris museum of living artists, Musee
de Luxembourg. It was also art for which models
were found in the painting of the previous
generations. Considered as the continuation of the
transformation which took place throughout the
whole century in French painting, its roots were
being found in mid-19th century.
Confrontation of the choices of Count Raczyński
together with a brief characteristic of European
collectors, at the turn of the 19th and 20th century
interested in new artistic trends, proves that the new
art was a subject of interest of Paris, Berlin, and
Moscow businessmen, bourgeoisie, and financiers
who promoted such values as innovation, novelty,
and progress. Meanwhile, aristocracy valued other
qualities more (tradition, history, past) and in those
European cities (London, Cracow, Vienna) in which
aristocracy held a strong position and were
committed to cultural activity, collections of pieces
of the new tendencies could hardly be found, or were
extremely rare.
Translated by Mgdalena Iwińska