DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38678#0017
Piranesi’s engravings and the royal library had some dozens of volumes of them. Perhaps, it
was the Vedute di Roma by Piranesi contained in the King’s collection that Canaletto used in
1769 to paint for the King fourteen views of ancient and papai Romę, where most of the
ancient motifs were derived from the above publication. The libraries of Polish patrons
included Athenian Antiąuities by Stuart-Revett as well as The Ruins of Baalbek and The
Ruins of Palmyra by Wood.
In Romę, in the circles of admirers of antiąuity, great popularity was enjoyed by Franciszek
Smuglewicz, who, over his twenty-year stay there, madę a large number of water colours and
drawings of ancient monuments. We can mention at least ten Polish architects who studied
the buildings of ancient Romę and their decoration on the spot. In the late seventies,
Stanisław Kostka Potocki, the first Polish archaeologist, who was the precursor of Polish
studies on ancient art, began work on classical art, and later excavations. His activity in this
field was crowned with his four-volume work The Ancient Art, that is Polish Winckelmann,
published in 1815. The popularity in Poland of antiąuating, arabesque-grotesque interior
decoration was affected by the decoration of the Golden House of Nero in Romę, engraved by
Smuglewicz and published in 1776 in the well-known publication, erroneously called Titus’
Hot-Baths, and by the magnificent water colour reconstructions of the villa of Pliny the
Younger, madę under the supervision of Stanisław Kostka Potocki. In the last quarter of the
18th century in Poland antiquating arabesque-grotesque ornamentation decorated tens, or
perhaps hundreds, of interiors. There were many versions, including sometimes motifs from
RaphaePs Logge and the decoration of the Wedgwood ceramics from England.
Pałace interiors were sometimes decorated with elements such as antique, so-called Etruscan,
vases and their imitations, ancient sculptures and goldsmith’s works, and also their copies and
imitations. A special gallery of the Łańcut Castle provided the most magnificent housing for
the collection of ancient sculpture owned by the MarshaPs wife, Izabela Lubomirska. A large
collection of ancient sculptures, collected by Helena Radziwiłł, was in the Arkadia at
Nieborów.
Monumental architecture has been justly said to have included as the most outstanding
specimens of the antiquating trend the faęade of Vilna Cathedral and the faęade of the Vilna
Town Hall, designed and built by Wawrzyniec Gucewicz. In Warsaw, the best example of
this trend was the Evangelical Church designed by Szymon Bogumił Zug; the idea, derived
from the Roman Pantheon, was creatively transposed by this Warsaw architect. The trend in
question included the designs of the Tempie of Divine Providence, which had elear links with
ancient architecture. (Certainly, one should not suppose that such architecture was deemed
best to satisfy the needs of religious worship; sińce it was the architects and patrons, and not
the church authorities, that decided). An outstanding work of the antiquating trend was the
amphitheatre in the Łazienki Park, in addition to which it is necessary to mention a building
which provided a symbolic closure to the Age of Enlightenment in Poland: the SybiPs Tempie
at Puławy, a museum in the naturę of a mausoleum of nationalremembrance, patterned after
the SybiPs Tempie at Tivoli.
In the Polish art of the Age of Enlightenment the antiquating trend found expression in
different forms, not only in architecture, but also in painting, sculpture and the decorative
arts, in park pavilions and artificial ruins, in sarcophagi and a variety of other park motifs. It
came to Poland directly from Italy, brought over by patrons and artists, also by way of
Palladio’s architecture and English architecture.
The late Renaissance architecture of Palladio, with elements and motifs defined as mannerist,
exerted important influence on the formation of English neoclassicism in the 18th century,
inspired architects in various countries and had such a major effect in Poland that one of the
trends in the architecture of the last quarter of the 18th century is called here Palladian. And
12
was the Vedute di Roma by Piranesi contained in the King’s collection that Canaletto used in
1769 to paint for the King fourteen views of ancient and papai Romę, where most of the
ancient motifs were derived from the above publication. The libraries of Polish patrons
included Athenian Antiąuities by Stuart-Revett as well as The Ruins of Baalbek and The
Ruins of Palmyra by Wood.
In Romę, in the circles of admirers of antiąuity, great popularity was enjoyed by Franciszek
Smuglewicz, who, over his twenty-year stay there, madę a large number of water colours and
drawings of ancient monuments. We can mention at least ten Polish architects who studied
the buildings of ancient Romę and their decoration on the spot. In the late seventies,
Stanisław Kostka Potocki, the first Polish archaeologist, who was the precursor of Polish
studies on ancient art, began work on classical art, and later excavations. His activity in this
field was crowned with his four-volume work The Ancient Art, that is Polish Winckelmann,
published in 1815. The popularity in Poland of antiąuating, arabesque-grotesque interior
decoration was affected by the decoration of the Golden House of Nero in Romę, engraved by
Smuglewicz and published in 1776 in the well-known publication, erroneously called Titus’
Hot-Baths, and by the magnificent water colour reconstructions of the villa of Pliny the
Younger, madę under the supervision of Stanisław Kostka Potocki. In the last quarter of the
18th century in Poland antiquating arabesque-grotesque ornamentation decorated tens, or
perhaps hundreds, of interiors. There were many versions, including sometimes motifs from
RaphaePs Logge and the decoration of the Wedgwood ceramics from England.
Pałace interiors were sometimes decorated with elements such as antique, so-called Etruscan,
vases and their imitations, ancient sculptures and goldsmith’s works, and also their copies and
imitations. A special gallery of the Łańcut Castle provided the most magnificent housing for
the collection of ancient sculpture owned by the MarshaPs wife, Izabela Lubomirska. A large
collection of ancient sculptures, collected by Helena Radziwiłł, was in the Arkadia at
Nieborów.
Monumental architecture has been justly said to have included as the most outstanding
specimens of the antiquating trend the faęade of Vilna Cathedral and the faęade of the Vilna
Town Hall, designed and built by Wawrzyniec Gucewicz. In Warsaw, the best example of
this trend was the Evangelical Church designed by Szymon Bogumił Zug; the idea, derived
from the Roman Pantheon, was creatively transposed by this Warsaw architect. The trend in
question included the designs of the Tempie of Divine Providence, which had elear links with
ancient architecture. (Certainly, one should not suppose that such architecture was deemed
best to satisfy the needs of religious worship; sińce it was the architects and patrons, and not
the church authorities, that decided). An outstanding work of the antiquating trend was the
amphitheatre in the Łazienki Park, in addition to which it is necessary to mention a building
which provided a symbolic closure to the Age of Enlightenment in Poland: the SybiPs Tempie
at Puławy, a museum in the naturę of a mausoleum of nationalremembrance, patterned after
the SybiPs Tempie at Tivoli.
In the Polish art of the Age of Enlightenment the antiquating trend found expression in
different forms, not only in architecture, but also in painting, sculpture and the decorative
arts, in park pavilions and artificial ruins, in sarcophagi and a variety of other park motifs. It
came to Poland directly from Italy, brought over by patrons and artists, also by way of
Palladio’s architecture and English architecture.
The late Renaissance architecture of Palladio, with elements and motifs defined as mannerist,
exerted important influence on the formation of English neoclassicism in the 18th century,
inspired architects in various countries and had such a major effect in Poland that one of the
trends in the architecture of the last quarter of the 18th century is called here Palladian. And
12