DOI Heft:
Nr. 126 (August 1907)
DOI Artikel:Notes on some Polish artists of to-day
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28252#0132
Some Polish Artists of To-day
years ago, and going by the name of “ Sztuka,” in-
cludes among its members many who live in
Russian and German Poland.
Among present-day exponents of the national
feeling, Jacek Malczewski occupies a leading posi-
tion. He was born in 1855 in a small place in
Russian Poland, but like many of his compatriots
has chosen Cracow as his home, for in Galicia the
Pole is free. A man of passionate, poetic feeling,
versed in the literature and history of his country,
and filled with an ever-glowing spirit of enthusiasm,
he passes his days in the silence of his studio, living
in a world of his own. He belongs to no com-
munity of artists, but the pictures he from time to
time gives to the world show him to be an ardent
patriot. One of the most beautiful and touching
of his works is that illustrating the death of a young
wife in a Siberian hut, the incident being taken
from the patriotic poem “Anhelli,” by Julius
Slowach. This Death of Ellenai touches us to
the quick, the sorrow of the young husband in its
desperate passion finds an echo in our hearts,
and we feel with him as, in a fervour of undying
love and gratitude, he bestows a farewell kiss on
the foot of his departed companion. Genre
subjects such as this are, however, not the only
things Malczewski paints. He is a mystic who sees
visions all around him, and who holds that just
as everything in nature bears an affinity to all other
things in nature, so also do human beings to others
of their kind. The picture called The Beetle, repro-
duced on p. 125, will serve as an illustration of
this side of his art. It is the portrait of a young
girl gazing intently on the movement of a beetle
slowly crawling over her hand. Looking over her
shoulder is a youth—her “other self” or “affinity.”
In some of his pictures this affinity seems to take
the form of a protecting angel, not merely swaying
in the air, but alive and tangible: but whatever
form it takes it is never obtrusive.
Ferdynand Ruszczyz, too, possesses a poetical
nature, subtle and deep, but his characteristics
differ widely from those of Malczewski. His works
are full of what the Germans call “ Stimmung,” a
quality which is manifest alike in such glimpses of
peaceful home life as he gives us in the Interior,
reproduced here (p. 125), as in those of his pictures
in which the more rugged life of the peasantry is
portrayed, though at the same time there is not
lacking a certain tendency to style. Henryk
Szczyglinski’s Homeward also shows this tendency ;
there is no lack of originality here, either in
conception or treatment, and the rendering of
atmosphere is admirable.
“snow scene”
116
BY JULIAN FALAT
years ago, and going by the name of “ Sztuka,” in-
cludes among its members many who live in
Russian and German Poland.
Among present-day exponents of the national
feeling, Jacek Malczewski occupies a leading posi-
tion. He was born in 1855 in a small place in
Russian Poland, but like many of his compatriots
has chosen Cracow as his home, for in Galicia the
Pole is free. A man of passionate, poetic feeling,
versed in the literature and history of his country,
and filled with an ever-glowing spirit of enthusiasm,
he passes his days in the silence of his studio, living
in a world of his own. He belongs to no com-
munity of artists, but the pictures he from time to
time gives to the world show him to be an ardent
patriot. One of the most beautiful and touching
of his works is that illustrating the death of a young
wife in a Siberian hut, the incident being taken
from the patriotic poem “Anhelli,” by Julius
Slowach. This Death of Ellenai touches us to
the quick, the sorrow of the young husband in its
desperate passion finds an echo in our hearts,
and we feel with him as, in a fervour of undying
love and gratitude, he bestows a farewell kiss on
the foot of his departed companion. Genre
subjects such as this are, however, not the only
things Malczewski paints. He is a mystic who sees
visions all around him, and who holds that just
as everything in nature bears an affinity to all other
things in nature, so also do human beings to others
of their kind. The picture called The Beetle, repro-
duced on p. 125, will serve as an illustration of
this side of his art. It is the portrait of a young
girl gazing intently on the movement of a beetle
slowly crawling over her hand. Looking over her
shoulder is a youth—her “other self” or “affinity.”
In some of his pictures this affinity seems to take
the form of a protecting angel, not merely swaying
in the air, but alive and tangible: but whatever
form it takes it is never obtrusive.
Ferdynand Ruszczyz, too, possesses a poetical
nature, subtle and deep, but his characteristics
differ widely from those of Malczewski. His works
are full of what the Germans call “ Stimmung,” a
quality which is manifest alike in such glimpses of
peaceful home life as he gives us in the Interior,
reproduced here (p. 125), as in those of his pictures
in which the more rugged life of the peasantry is
portrayed, though at the same time there is not
lacking a certain tendency to style. Henryk
Szczyglinski’s Homeward also shows this tendency ;
there is no lack of originality here, either in
conception or treatment, and the rendering of
atmosphere is admirable.
“snow scene”
116
BY JULIAN FALAT