Lorentz, Stanisław; Rottermund, Andrzej: Neoclassicism in Poland (Warsaw, 1986)

Warsaw, Solec Garden, draft design of an artificial ruin and wooden mili, S.B. Zug, c. 1772
The Sources, Beginnings and Main Trends of
the Art of the Polish Enlightenment
New trends in the art of the mid-18th century reached Poland by various routes. It seems that
they first came from France, brought by magnate patrons, who had even earlier maintained
direct contacts with France. The great Polish magnates, such as Czartoryski or Branicki,
brought from Paris not only architectural designs, but also specially ordered panelling,
furniture, textiles and products of artistic industry. The contacts with France were of
a permanent naturę and, sińce Paris was the main centre of the thought and art of the
Enlightenment, it influenced Poland directly. The morę forward-thinking magnates, who
were greatly interested in the philosophy and writings of the Enlightenment, were well versed
in the theoreticał considerations which gave shape to new aesthetic views. But essential
influence on the development of the arts was not exerted by aesthetic theory, but rather by
aesthetic practice, particularly by discussions and commentaries contained in engraved
publications devoted to ancient monuments, architecture, great collections, outstanding
artists and works of art.
There is reliable evidence that new neoclassical trends began to occur in Poland about 1760,
before Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski came to the throne. This evidence includes designs of
the French architect Charles Pierre Coustou, who stayed in Poland from 1760 to 1762,
probably at the invitation of Izabela Lubomirska, nee Czartoryska. His design of the smali
pałace at Jordanowice near Grodzisk in the area of Warsaw, which is dated at 1761, was an
example of early French neoclassical architecture, of the version called the Gabriel style. The
close contacts between the owner of Jordanowice, Andrzej Mokronowski, and the Branicki
family from Białystok permit the supposition that the latter showed an early interest in the
new trends in the arts; this is all the morę probable as the commander-in-chief of the army,
Branicki, had personal political ties with France.
In the same years distinct signs of the new trends could be seen in the work of the Warsaw
architect Efraim Szreger, particularly in his design, from the turn of 1761 and 1762, of the
faęade of the Church of Discalced Carmelites in Krakowskie Przedmieście Street in Warsaw.
It was an interesting, individual work, which combined in an original way baroąue and
neoclassical elements. It can also be assumed from other works of Szreger that he used in
design various engraved French publications, including Architecture franęaise by N.F.
Blondel and Recueil d’architecture by J.F. Neufforge. In the faęade of the Carmelites’
Church there could be discerned some reverberations of the Gabriel style in the palaces in the

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