DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25820#0009
History of Art at the Jagiellonian University 1882-2007
Łepkowski and at the same time received a postdoctoral
degree on the basis of his dissertation on the pre-
Romanesque ruins on the island of Lednica lake (Ostrów
Lednicki). In the year 1882 he obtained University’s
Chair of Art History - the first one on Polish territory. He
soon also moved to the foreground as regards the activity
of the Commission on Art History at the Academy of Arts
and Sciences, whose head he became in the year 1892;
a year later he was appointed director of the Princes
Czartoryski Museum. An all-round humanist and brilliant
erudite who was versatile in European art from antiquity
to the contemporary times, in his didactic activity he lay
emphasis on the teaching of general art history as well as
on practical classes, held in situ - in churches and palaces,
or next to the works of art to be found in museums.
Whereas conducting research on the Polish art, as seen
through the perspective of the vast European context, was
regarded by him as a patriotic duty of a scholar. Although
he regarded art history as a part of history of culture, he
was able to perceive the specificity of a work of art which
was due both to the properties of the material and the
applied technique, as well as the activity of the artist’s
imagination; in his research he moved away both from the
antiquarian artistic fact-finding of Łepkowski and the
philosophical-aesthetic speculations of Kremer, towards
the concrete analysis of a work of art and towards placing
it in the comparative context of other phenomena. The
research method which was worked out by him was
reminiscent of and to some extent also inspired by the
attitude represented by the scholars belonging to the
Vienna school of art history: namely that of Rudolf
Eitelberger von Edelberg and, to a lesser degree, that of
Moritz Thausing.
Although for a long time Sokołowski did not have any
of his own pupils at the university, yet he managed to
gather around him a group of amateur collaborators who
did research on Polish art and whose works he published,
often supplementing them with his own remarks and
commentaries in the Sprawozdania Komisji Historii
Sztuki. Some of these “adopted disciples” attained
important academic positions in the sphere of art
research; such was the case e.g. with the philologist
StanisławTomkowicz (1850-1933) and historian Jerzy
Mycie 1 ski (1856-1928). The former, an outstanding
specialist in inventorying art monuments as well as
conservator looking after the monuments of Cracow and
several other counties in Galicia, a great authority in this
respect and author of numerous papers on the subject,
took over after Sokołowski as chairman of the
Commission on Art History of the Academy of Arts and
Sciences. The latter, an early associate professor
specializing in research on modern and contemporary
painting and since the year 1894, professor ad personam
of art history at the Jagiellonian University, succeeded to
the chair after Sokolowski’s retirement in the year 1910.
Julian Klaczko and the still mysterious Maria
Straszewska who might be the same person as Maria
Sadowska, the wife of Maurycy Straszewski, professor
of philosophy, operated outside this circle. Julian
Julian Klaczko
Klaczko (1825-1906), who came from a Jewish family
from Vilnius, was an emigre politician and publicist
associated with the Czartoryski camp; he was also a poet
and scholar of Dante, as well as a literary and art critic;
he became interested in art history relatively late in his
life. When in the year 1888 he moved permanently from
Paris to Cracow, where he maintained close contacts with
Sokołowski, he had already published a book entitled
Causeries florentines (1881), devoted chiefly to Dante but
one which also contained numerous references to the
fine arts; the first of the four dialogues which make up
the story, relates in its entirety to the personality and art
of Michelangelo. While in Cracow, Klaczko published
a treatise Święty Franciszek z Asyżu i gotycyzm włoski
[Saint Francis of Assisi and the Italian Gothic] in the
year 1893 and also wrote a book that was published in
Paris in 1898 entitled Rome et la Renaissance. Jules //; the
book preceded chronologically all of the most important
contemporary studies on Michelangelo. Klaczko’s books
published in French and translated into other languages,
entered into the mainstream of world achievements in
the field of art history. In turn, in the year 1885, Maria
Straszewska (1855-1918) published an excellent
review of research papers on Leonardo da Vinci. The
interest of both scholars in the Italian Renaissance
distinguished them from the Cracow milieu and brought
them more closely to the programme proclaimed at the
turn of the nineteenth century by Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz,
since 1893 the first professor of art history at the Lvov
university; the latter perceived the danger of provin-
cialism in limiting oneself to the discussion of one’s
“native” problems.
7
Łepkowski and at the same time received a postdoctoral
degree on the basis of his dissertation on the pre-
Romanesque ruins on the island of Lednica lake (Ostrów
Lednicki). In the year 1882 he obtained University’s
Chair of Art History - the first one on Polish territory. He
soon also moved to the foreground as regards the activity
of the Commission on Art History at the Academy of Arts
and Sciences, whose head he became in the year 1892;
a year later he was appointed director of the Princes
Czartoryski Museum. An all-round humanist and brilliant
erudite who was versatile in European art from antiquity
to the contemporary times, in his didactic activity he lay
emphasis on the teaching of general art history as well as
on practical classes, held in situ - in churches and palaces,
or next to the works of art to be found in museums.
Whereas conducting research on the Polish art, as seen
through the perspective of the vast European context, was
regarded by him as a patriotic duty of a scholar. Although
he regarded art history as a part of history of culture, he
was able to perceive the specificity of a work of art which
was due both to the properties of the material and the
applied technique, as well as the activity of the artist’s
imagination; in his research he moved away both from the
antiquarian artistic fact-finding of Łepkowski and the
philosophical-aesthetic speculations of Kremer, towards
the concrete analysis of a work of art and towards placing
it in the comparative context of other phenomena. The
research method which was worked out by him was
reminiscent of and to some extent also inspired by the
attitude represented by the scholars belonging to the
Vienna school of art history: namely that of Rudolf
Eitelberger von Edelberg and, to a lesser degree, that of
Moritz Thausing.
Although for a long time Sokołowski did not have any
of his own pupils at the university, yet he managed to
gather around him a group of amateur collaborators who
did research on Polish art and whose works he published,
often supplementing them with his own remarks and
commentaries in the Sprawozdania Komisji Historii
Sztuki. Some of these “adopted disciples” attained
important academic positions in the sphere of art
research; such was the case e.g. with the philologist
StanisławTomkowicz (1850-1933) and historian Jerzy
Mycie 1 ski (1856-1928). The former, an outstanding
specialist in inventorying art monuments as well as
conservator looking after the monuments of Cracow and
several other counties in Galicia, a great authority in this
respect and author of numerous papers on the subject,
took over after Sokołowski as chairman of the
Commission on Art History of the Academy of Arts and
Sciences. The latter, an early associate professor
specializing in research on modern and contemporary
painting and since the year 1894, professor ad personam
of art history at the Jagiellonian University, succeeded to
the chair after Sokolowski’s retirement in the year 1910.
Julian Klaczko and the still mysterious Maria
Straszewska who might be the same person as Maria
Sadowska, the wife of Maurycy Straszewski, professor
of philosophy, operated outside this circle. Julian
Julian Klaczko
Klaczko (1825-1906), who came from a Jewish family
from Vilnius, was an emigre politician and publicist
associated with the Czartoryski camp; he was also a poet
and scholar of Dante, as well as a literary and art critic;
he became interested in art history relatively late in his
life. When in the year 1888 he moved permanently from
Paris to Cracow, where he maintained close contacts with
Sokołowski, he had already published a book entitled
Causeries florentines (1881), devoted chiefly to Dante but
one which also contained numerous references to the
fine arts; the first of the four dialogues which make up
the story, relates in its entirety to the personality and art
of Michelangelo. While in Cracow, Klaczko published
a treatise Święty Franciszek z Asyżu i gotycyzm włoski
[Saint Francis of Assisi and the Italian Gothic] in the
year 1893 and also wrote a book that was published in
Paris in 1898 entitled Rome et la Renaissance. Jules //; the
book preceded chronologically all of the most important
contemporary studies on Michelangelo. Klaczko’s books
published in French and translated into other languages,
entered into the mainstream of world achievements in
the field of art history. In turn, in the year 1885, Maria
Straszewska (1855-1918) published an excellent
review of research papers on Leonardo da Vinci. The
interest of both scholars in the Italian Renaissance
distinguished them from the Cracow milieu and brought
them more closely to the programme proclaimed at the
turn of the nineteenth century by Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz,
since 1893 the first professor of art history at the Lvov
university; the latter perceived the danger of provin-
cialism in limiting oneself to the discussion of one’s
“native” problems.
7