DOI Heft:
Nr. 2-3
DOI Artikel:Białostocki, Jan: Art, politics, and national independence
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18864#0056
1. A. Orłowski, Emperor Paul visiting Kościuszko under arrest, litograph, 1801,
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe
Polish artists of 19th century were to manifest a basically different attitude. For them
political functions of art became something obvious, sińce politics ceased to be a matter suitable
for kings. It became the concern of the whole nation.
It is not usual today to ascribe an important role to historical painting in the development
of 19th century art. It was different still in the recent past: it suffices to look through the
pre-second World War edition of the Petit Larousse illuslre, to find there several reproductions
of pictures, completely forgotten today. Without ąuestion masterpieces of Goya, monumental
pictures by Gros, Manet's Execution of Maximilian, one or the other picture by Menzel are even
today highly valued. If one looks however into the generał surveys of art history, the 19 th
century is there usually represented by reproductions of landscapes, portraits, genre pieces,
still-life pictures, sometimes allegories — like Homer's Apotheosis by Ingres or Liberty on the
Barricades by Delacroix —■ certainly connected with history, but hardly belonging to the historical
genre. Historical painting is even today still condemned to the limbo of art history, allowed to get
on at the best iconographic interest.
Who is looking today at the works of Edouard Detaillle, Adolphe Yvon, Franęois-Joseph Heim,
Heuri-Emmanuel-Felix Philippoteaux, each of whom received in the ąuoted Larousse of 1936
not only notes but also illustrations (described often as „peintres militaires", which makes
elear how much unambiguously history was understood as that of human discord and violence)?
Who is looking today — to mention also another school of painting —- at the works by Carl Rahl,
Leopold Kupelwieser, Carl Blass or even of Anton Romako?
Liberated from their duties binding them to the authority and church, to the powerful aristo-
cratic patron, to the king or the emperor, painting, perhaps for the first time in its history complet-
ely separated from its traditional functions, left to its own initiative, serving the cause of an
autonomous world of art —■ in which believed its representatives — was going its own way.
Martyrs and heroes of art were being created, who ■—■ uncorruptible —« opposed the expectations
46
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe
Polish artists of 19th century were to manifest a basically different attitude. For them
political functions of art became something obvious, sińce politics ceased to be a matter suitable
for kings. It became the concern of the whole nation.
It is not usual today to ascribe an important role to historical painting in the development
of 19th century art. It was different still in the recent past: it suffices to look through the
pre-second World War edition of the Petit Larousse illuslre, to find there several reproductions
of pictures, completely forgotten today. Without ąuestion masterpieces of Goya, monumental
pictures by Gros, Manet's Execution of Maximilian, one or the other picture by Menzel are even
today highly valued. If one looks however into the generał surveys of art history, the 19 th
century is there usually represented by reproductions of landscapes, portraits, genre pieces,
still-life pictures, sometimes allegories — like Homer's Apotheosis by Ingres or Liberty on the
Barricades by Delacroix —■ certainly connected with history, but hardly belonging to the historical
genre. Historical painting is even today still condemned to the limbo of art history, allowed to get
on at the best iconographic interest.
Who is looking today at the works of Edouard Detaillle, Adolphe Yvon, Franęois-Joseph Heim,
Heuri-Emmanuel-Felix Philippoteaux, each of whom received in the ąuoted Larousse of 1936
not only notes but also illustrations (described often as „peintres militaires", which makes
elear how much unambiguously history was understood as that of human discord and violence)?
Who is looking today — to mention also another school of painting —- at the works by Carl Rahl,
Leopold Kupelwieser, Carl Blass or even of Anton Romako?
Liberated from their duties binding them to the authority and church, to the powerful aristo-
cratic patron, to the king or the emperor, painting, perhaps for the first time in its history complet-
ely separated from its traditional functions, left to its own initiative, serving the cause of an
autonomous world of art —■ in which believed its representatives — was going its own way.
Martyrs and heroes of art were being created, who ■—■ uncorruptible —« opposed the expectations
46