DOI Artikel:
Smorąg Różycka, Małgorzata: Profesor Anna Różycka Bryzek (1928-2005)
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19072#0029
Professor Anna Różycka Bryzek (1928-2005)
When in 2000 I was making a collection of studies entitled/4/-s Graeca -Ars Latina, dedi-
cated to Professor Anna Różycka Biyzek (Kraków 2001), ready to go to press and, likewise, in
the following year the proceedings of the symposium accompanying the ceremoniał presentation
of that Book to the Professor, assembled in the volume Sztuka średniowiecznego Wschodu i Za-
chodu. Osiągnięcia i perspektywy poznawcze u progu XXI wieku (The Art of the Medieval East
and West. Achievemenls and Research Prospecls on the Threshold of the 2Isl Century) (Kraków
2002), I did not expect that I would soon have to write these words of a posthumous tribute.
On 8th September, 2005, in the Salwator Cemeteiy in Cracow we took leave of her for ever.
The text below is dedicated to the memory of the Professor.
Professor Anna Różycka Biyzek was one of the most eminent Polish art historians, among
whom she stood out as a specialist in the history of Byzantine and Slavonic-Byzantine art,
a speciality rare to this day. The course for almost fifty years of her research work, counted
from the first publication in 1956, was set by the Byzantine-Ruthenian paintings commissioned
by the Jagiellons, to which she devoted her entire life. However, she was eąually dedicated
to continuing the work of her master and teacher, Professor Wojsław Mole, consolidating the
position of Byzantine studies at university level and finally leading to the creation in 1989 of
the Department of the History of Byzantine Art, the first in Poland. within the Institute of the
History of Art of the Jagiellonian University. There was a special place in her life for her pupils
to whom she gave her heart...
Her decision to study English philology and her graduation in 1951 with an MA degree on
the basis of the thesis Ruskin as a Critic of Art, did not in the least change her determination
to link her life, not only professionally, with the history of art. In the same year she began to
work at the Czartoryski Museum, from 1950 formally a Branch of the National Museum. her
interests being first focused on Italian Proto-Renaissance painting. A short paper on the Late
Ruthenian painted triptych in the Czartoryski Collection, chronologically the first on the list of
Prof. Różycka's scholarly bibliography, did not yet herald her later complete dedication to Eastern
Christian art. The first decade of her work at the Museum coincided with the time of dramatic
defence of the integrity of the Czartoryski Collection; however, this was also the time of putting
in order and organizing the exhibition in a new thematic arrangement after the major renovation
of the building at the junction of Św. Jana and Pijarska Streets, carried out from 1955 to 1959.
Essential changes in the programme of the permanent exhibition at the Czartoryski Museum
were introduced gradually during the 1970s and 1980s. Prof. Różycka participated in these
activities with her characteristic emotional involvement and scholarly self-discipline, while she
was formally connected with the department of painting, from 1957 as i ts curator. Henceforth she
focused her attention on the analytic-attributive study of Italian paintings as part of preparations
for the exhibition organized together with the National Gallery in Prague and the Museum of Art
in Bucarest and opened in 1961. Prof. Różycka was the editor of the catalogue of that exhibition,
prepared in several language versions; she also wrote 60 catalogue entries for the exhibits which
for the most part had not until then been the object of research. Moreover, she devoted a separate
study to some paintings, publishing it the year before in "Biuletyn Historii Sztuki". From then
on she took up the subject of West European painting only exceptionally, dedicating herself to
the study of the art of the Eastern circle of European civilization.
Her interest in Byzantine art developed gradually under the influence of Prof. Wojsław Mole's
lectures at the Jagiellonian University, which he resumed after World War II and continued
23
When in 2000 I was making a collection of studies entitled/4/-s Graeca -Ars Latina, dedi-
cated to Professor Anna Różycka Biyzek (Kraków 2001), ready to go to press and, likewise, in
the following year the proceedings of the symposium accompanying the ceremoniał presentation
of that Book to the Professor, assembled in the volume Sztuka średniowiecznego Wschodu i Za-
chodu. Osiągnięcia i perspektywy poznawcze u progu XXI wieku (The Art of the Medieval East
and West. Achievemenls and Research Prospecls on the Threshold of the 2Isl Century) (Kraków
2002), I did not expect that I would soon have to write these words of a posthumous tribute.
On 8th September, 2005, in the Salwator Cemeteiy in Cracow we took leave of her for ever.
The text below is dedicated to the memory of the Professor.
Professor Anna Różycka Biyzek was one of the most eminent Polish art historians, among
whom she stood out as a specialist in the history of Byzantine and Slavonic-Byzantine art,
a speciality rare to this day. The course for almost fifty years of her research work, counted
from the first publication in 1956, was set by the Byzantine-Ruthenian paintings commissioned
by the Jagiellons, to which she devoted her entire life. However, she was eąually dedicated
to continuing the work of her master and teacher, Professor Wojsław Mole, consolidating the
position of Byzantine studies at university level and finally leading to the creation in 1989 of
the Department of the History of Byzantine Art, the first in Poland. within the Institute of the
History of Art of the Jagiellonian University. There was a special place in her life for her pupils
to whom she gave her heart...
Her decision to study English philology and her graduation in 1951 with an MA degree on
the basis of the thesis Ruskin as a Critic of Art, did not in the least change her determination
to link her life, not only professionally, with the history of art. In the same year she began to
work at the Czartoryski Museum, from 1950 formally a Branch of the National Museum. her
interests being first focused on Italian Proto-Renaissance painting. A short paper on the Late
Ruthenian painted triptych in the Czartoryski Collection, chronologically the first on the list of
Prof. Różycka's scholarly bibliography, did not yet herald her later complete dedication to Eastern
Christian art. The first decade of her work at the Museum coincided with the time of dramatic
defence of the integrity of the Czartoryski Collection; however, this was also the time of putting
in order and organizing the exhibition in a new thematic arrangement after the major renovation
of the building at the junction of Św. Jana and Pijarska Streets, carried out from 1955 to 1959.
Essential changes in the programme of the permanent exhibition at the Czartoryski Museum
were introduced gradually during the 1970s and 1980s. Prof. Różycka participated in these
activities with her characteristic emotional involvement and scholarly self-discipline, while she
was formally connected with the department of painting, from 1957 as i ts curator. Henceforth she
focused her attention on the analytic-attributive study of Italian paintings as part of preparations
for the exhibition organized together with the National Gallery in Prague and the Museum of Art
in Bucarest and opened in 1961. Prof. Różycka was the editor of the catalogue of that exhibition,
prepared in several language versions; she also wrote 60 catalogue entries for the exhibits which
for the most part had not until then been the object of research. Moreover, she devoted a separate
study to some paintings, publishing it the year before in "Biuletyn Historii Sztuki". From then
on she took up the subject of West European painting only exceptionally, dedicating herself to
the study of the art of the Eastern circle of European civilization.
Her interest in Byzantine art developed gradually under the influence of Prof. Wojsław Mole's
lectures at the Jagiellonian University, which he resumed after World War II and continued
23