DOI Heft:
Nr. 220 (June, 1915)
DOI Artikel:Studio-Talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43458#0406
Studio- Talk
industrial metropolis of Poland, for which the hosts
of Russia and Germany have striven so terribly.
He was brought up in those devout circles of
Polish Judaism which have preserved their form
and essence more purely in Russia than anywhere
else. For the last twenty years, however, he has
made his home in Paris, and many exhibitions of
his work have been given there as well as in other
continental cities. Driven to London after the
destruction by the French military authorities of
his villa on the outskirts of Paris, he is now prepar-
ing an exhibition of some of his most characteristic
canvases for the English public. A pupil of
Benjamin Constant, he confined himself at first to
portraits, and so successful was he in this direction
that he was urged to devote himself entirely to
portraiture, but something which would embody
not only the soul of the individual but the soul
of a nation and a people haunted him even then.
Later, he returned to his native Poland, where once
more the love of the shadowy and the nocturnal
awoke in him ; but by degrees he shook off the
haunting of the native soil and yielded to the
deeper instincts of the native soul, the cry of his
race, the pageant of his co-religionists as it unfolded
itself tragically before his eyes, and to this resolve
the world owes the numerous epic paintings which
have flowed from the brush of this Russian-
Polish master. He has drawn many powerful
motives from the ghettos of the Continent, and
since his arrival in London he has been closely
studying the milieu of Whitechapel. He has already
contributed a number of portraits of famous Jews
to the Jewish Museum at Jerusalem, and it is his
ambition to add to this steadily by painting the
famous Jews of every land for this collection.
The three etchings by Mr. Francis Osler,
A.R.I.B.A., here reproduced, are noteworthy by
reason of the evidence they afford of a genuine
appreciation of the possibilities and character of
the copper-plate and of a sympathetic under-
standing of the true quality of the etched line—
the more so because these plates are practically
the artist’s initial efforts in the medium. There
is no trace of that somewhat mechanical rigidity
of draughtsmanship which occasionally betrays
itself in the etchings of an architect, but, rather
“THE WEARY one” BY LEOPOLD PILICHOWSKI
282
industrial metropolis of Poland, for which the hosts
of Russia and Germany have striven so terribly.
He was brought up in those devout circles of
Polish Judaism which have preserved their form
and essence more purely in Russia than anywhere
else. For the last twenty years, however, he has
made his home in Paris, and many exhibitions of
his work have been given there as well as in other
continental cities. Driven to London after the
destruction by the French military authorities of
his villa on the outskirts of Paris, he is now prepar-
ing an exhibition of some of his most characteristic
canvases for the English public. A pupil of
Benjamin Constant, he confined himself at first to
portraits, and so successful was he in this direction
that he was urged to devote himself entirely to
portraiture, but something which would embody
not only the soul of the individual but the soul
of a nation and a people haunted him even then.
Later, he returned to his native Poland, where once
more the love of the shadowy and the nocturnal
awoke in him ; but by degrees he shook off the
haunting of the native soil and yielded to the
deeper instincts of the native soul, the cry of his
race, the pageant of his co-religionists as it unfolded
itself tragically before his eyes, and to this resolve
the world owes the numerous epic paintings which
have flowed from the brush of this Russian-
Polish master. He has drawn many powerful
motives from the ghettos of the Continent, and
since his arrival in London he has been closely
studying the milieu of Whitechapel. He has already
contributed a number of portraits of famous Jews
to the Jewish Museum at Jerusalem, and it is his
ambition to add to this steadily by painting the
famous Jews of every land for this collection.
The three etchings by Mr. Francis Osler,
A.R.I.B.A., here reproduced, are noteworthy by
reason of the evidence they afford of a genuine
appreciation of the possibilities and character of
the copper-plate and of a sympathetic under-
standing of the true quality of the etched line—
the more so because these plates are practically
the artist’s initial efforts in the medium. There
is no trace of that somewhat mechanical rigidity
of draughtsmanship which occasionally betrays
itself in the etchings of an architect, but, rather
“THE WEARY one” BY LEOPOLD PILICHOWSKI
282