DOI Artikel:
Violetta Korsakova: On Lviv Art Historians and a School that Never Was
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73804#0086
Folia Historiae Artium
Seria Nowa, t. 22: 2024/PL ISSN 0071-6723
VIOLETTA KORSAKOVA
Institut of Art History, Jagiellonian University in Cracow
ON LVIV ART HISTORIANS AND A SCHOOL
THAT NEVER WAS
Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year...1
- W.H. Auden, Atlantis
Apart from the 150th jubilee of the Commission of Art
History at the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Cracow
- acknowledged by the conference where this paper was
first presented - the year 2023 marked yet another anni-
versary: 130 years since the establishing of the first pro-
fessorship of art history (1893) at Lviv University for Jan
Bołoz Antoniewicz.2 During its short history this academ-
ic chair educated several generations of Polish art histori-
ans, associated many prominent scholars and turned into
a potent place for scientific research. Then it was extin-
guished along with the Jan Kazimir University and Polish
Lviv altogether by the tragic currents of the Second World
War. What interests me is its afterlife - at this point more
lengthy than its actual presence - and the historiographi-
cal writings on the matter, out of which a concept of a sci-
entifically coherent and distinctive 'Lviv school of art his-
tory gradually emerged. Fully developed in the works of
Adam Małkiewicz, the term characterizes Lviv academ-
ics' intellectual output by their interest in European and
contemporary art, art theory, and interdisciplinary and
formalist methodology, while emphasizing its modernity
and receptivity in contrast to that of the first representa-
1 W.H. Auden, 'Atlantis', in Selected Poems, ed. E. Mendelson,
London 2009, p. 125.
2 W. Walanus, 'Powstanie Komisji Historii Sztuki Akademii Umie-
jętności - karta z dziejów instytucjonalizacji dyscypliny, Folia Hi-
storiae Artium, s.n., 21, 2023, pp. 5-23
tives of the so-called 'Cracow school' . With a closer look
at this retrospective re-calling, I would like to question its
two key narratives: that of Lviv scholars' scientific conso-
nance and their opposition to art history in Cracow.
The simple fact that Cracow and Lviv universities held
the two first - and for some time only - Polish chairs of
art history, accounts for their initial juxtaposition in the
earliest overviews of the discipline's history and institu-
tionalization. That comparison, in turn, drew attention
to an apparent contrast between the professors who ran
them: Marian Sokołowski and Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz.
Władysław Podlacha - aptly a student of both - compared
them in an obituary to the latter.3 Of the two Sokołowski
was described as an academic who devoted himself to
studying Polish art and in his evaluation of the artistic
material never relied solely on the objects, but strove to
present the most detailed historical findings on their sub-
ject. Bołoz, on the other hand, was renowned for his in-
terest in the Italian Renaissance and contemporary art,
an emotionally engaged approach to art works and an in-
terdisciplinary take on art historical methodology. Since
both had been set to educate future colleagues in accor-
dance with their own views, those approaches were often
treated as formative for their respective academic circles.
Such an assumption was made by Adam Bochnak in
one of the first comprehensive overviews of Polish aca-
demic art history, Zarys dziejów polskiej historii sztuki,
Wł. Podlacha, Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz 1858-1922, Lwów 1923
[Osobne odbicie z I-go tomu Prac Sekcyi Historyi Sztuki i Kultu-
ry Towarzystwa Naukowego we Lwowie], pp. 1-21.
Seria Nowa, t. 22: 2024/PL ISSN 0071-6723
VIOLETTA KORSAKOVA
Institut of Art History, Jagiellonian University in Cracow
ON LVIV ART HISTORIANS AND A SCHOOL
THAT NEVER WAS
Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year...1
- W.H. Auden, Atlantis
Apart from the 150th jubilee of the Commission of Art
History at the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Cracow
- acknowledged by the conference where this paper was
first presented - the year 2023 marked yet another anni-
versary: 130 years since the establishing of the first pro-
fessorship of art history (1893) at Lviv University for Jan
Bołoz Antoniewicz.2 During its short history this academ-
ic chair educated several generations of Polish art histori-
ans, associated many prominent scholars and turned into
a potent place for scientific research. Then it was extin-
guished along with the Jan Kazimir University and Polish
Lviv altogether by the tragic currents of the Second World
War. What interests me is its afterlife - at this point more
lengthy than its actual presence - and the historiographi-
cal writings on the matter, out of which a concept of a sci-
entifically coherent and distinctive 'Lviv school of art his-
tory gradually emerged. Fully developed in the works of
Adam Małkiewicz, the term characterizes Lviv academ-
ics' intellectual output by their interest in European and
contemporary art, art theory, and interdisciplinary and
formalist methodology, while emphasizing its modernity
and receptivity in contrast to that of the first representa-
1 W.H. Auden, 'Atlantis', in Selected Poems, ed. E. Mendelson,
London 2009, p. 125.
2 W. Walanus, 'Powstanie Komisji Historii Sztuki Akademii Umie-
jętności - karta z dziejów instytucjonalizacji dyscypliny, Folia Hi-
storiae Artium, s.n., 21, 2023, pp. 5-23
tives of the so-called 'Cracow school' . With a closer look
at this retrospective re-calling, I would like to question its
two key narratives: that of Lviv scholars' scientific conso-
nance and their opposition to art history in Cracow.
The simple fact that Cracow and Lviv universities held
the two first - and for some time only - Polish chairs of
art history, accounts for their initial juxtaposition in the
earliest overviews of the discipline's history and institu-
tionalization. That comparison, in turn, drew attention
to an apparent contrast between the professors who ran
them: Marian Sokołowski and Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz.
Władysław Podlacha - aptly a student of both - compared
them in an obituary to the latter.3 Of the two Sokołowski
was described as an academic who devoted himself to
studying Polish art and in his evaluation of the artistic
material never relied solely on the objects, but strove to
present the most detailed historical findings on their sub-
ject. Bołoz, on the other hand, was renowned for his in-
terest in the Italian Renaissance and contemporary art,
an emotionally engaged approach to art works and an in-
terdisciplinary take on art historical methodology. Since
both had been set to educate future colleagues in accor-
dance with their own views, those approaches were often
treated as formative for their respective academic circles.
Such an assumption was made by Adam Bochnak in
one of the first comprehensive overviews of Polish aca-
demic art history, Zarys dziejów polskiej historii sztuki,
Wł. Podlacha, Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz 1858-1922, Lwów 1923
[Osobne odbicie z I-go tomu Prac Sekcyi Historyi Sztuki i Kultu-
ry Towarzystwa Naukowego we Lwowie], pp. 1-21.