DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Henshaw, Julia Plummer: Images of Women in Polish Symbolist Art
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18901#0054
15. Konrad Krzyżanowski, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, 1912, Opole, Muzeum Śląskie
whose body is all but enclosed by the womblike armchair. One is reminded of paintings by Munch
of the sick and dying. This portrait presents a frail, timid Michalina, who — one assumes —
will be protected by her thirty-three-year old husband. Seven years or so later, Krzyżanowski
once again represented Michalina as a detached, contemplative individual, turned in on herself
in Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (Silesian Museum, Opole, fig. 15). Both these portraits present
a woman who is quite the opposite of a voluptuous and powerful sensual being. Krzyżanowskie
Portrait of Maria Krzymuska „Theresita” (c. 1902, National Museum in Warsaw, fig. 16) de-
monstrates that he was not unaware of the eroticism associated with Przybyszewski at the
turn of the century; his Portrait of a Russian Actress (1897, Regional Museum in Toruń, fig. 17)
shows that he was capable of painting an image of a woman that suggests great character and
sensitivity. Actresses, of course, occupied a special place in the culture of the fin de siècle, and
it is interesting to consider that the magnetic appeal of this class of women must be based partly
on the fact that they constantly are required to project a personality that is not, in fact, their
own9.
44
whose body is all but enclosed by the womblike armchair. One is reminded of paintings by Munch
of the sick and dying. This portrait presents a frail, timid Michalina, who — one assumes —
will be protected by her thirty-three-year old husband. Seven years or so later, Krzyżanowski
once again represented Michalina as a detached, contemplative individual, turned in on herself
in Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (Silesian Museum, Opole, fig. 15). Both these portraits present
a woman who is quite the opposite of a voluptuous and powerful sensual being. Krzyżanowskie
Portrait of Maria Krzymuska „Theresita” (c. 1902, National Museum in Warsaw, fig. 16) de-
monstrates that he was not unaware of the eroticism associated with Przybyszewski at the
turn of the century; his Portrait of a Russian Actress (1897, Regional Museum in Toruń, fig. 17)
shows that he was capable of painting an image of a woman that suggests great character and
sensitivity. Actresses, of course, occupied a special place in the culture of the fin de siècle, and
it is interesting to consider that the magnetic appeal of this class of women must be based partly
on the fact that they constantly are required to project a personality that is not, in fact, their
own9.
44