DOI article:
Wójcik, Agata: Inspiracje sztuką ludową w meblarstwie artystów kręgu Towarzystwa Polska Sztuka Stosowana
Citation link:https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/modus2020/0232
The tpss was also interested in old Polish wooden architecture. Already at
the Warsaw exhibition in 1902, drawings and photographs of secular and sacred
timber architecture were shown.15 From 13 April to 15 May 1905, the Society
organized an exhibition in Kraków, documenting the historical wooden struć -
tures thorough Poland. Approximately one thousand drawings and photographs
were presented, from the tpss stock, the National Museum in Kraków, as well as
private collections. The exhibition was given a thematic layout, which consisted
of the following sections: the cottage, the country and town manor with farm
buildings, the arcaded town house, and the religious buildings (churches, syna-
gogues, roadside chapels and crosses). The topographic division was followed as
well, distinguishing between the Spis land, Austrian and Prussian Silesia, Poznań
region, Galicia, the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia, Podoba, Volhynia,
and Ukrainę. Most of the featured sketches and photos were presenting the art
from the territory of the Russian partition and Galicia, especially Podhale (Car-
pathian Foothills). Apart from drawings and photographs, wooden architecture
was documented in books and graphic albums.16
The documentation of wooden architecture reproductions collected by
the tpss included over 720 photographs and 120 drawings. A significant part
of these are currently in the collection of the Print Room of the Main Library
of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, as well as in the Ethnographic Museum
in Kraków. They memorialise monuments of wooden architecture, often already
non-existent at the beginning of the twentieth century, from the lands of the
Silesian Beskids, Upper Silesia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, Subcarpathia,
Carpathian Foothills, Eastern Galicia and the Vilnius region, among others.
The Society also devoted two issues of its own periodical to the monuments
of wooden architecture. The sixth issue (1905) accompanied the Kraków exhibi-
tion, and the twelfth (1909) entitled “Crosses in Lithuania” contained the text
and drawings by Franciszek Krzywda Polkowski who, at the request of Count
Jan Przeździecki, in the summer of 1908, travelled for two months in the Jezio-
rowski and Wilkomierski regions in Lithuania and madę over 100 drawings
depicting roadside crosses, chapels and decorative details of huts, porches, and
granaries.17
For the members of the tpss, the manor houses, cottages and wooden churches
scattered throughout the Polish lands were as“mute witnesses [...] of history, [...]
sensitive organisms through which almost all styles and epochs have passed.”
It was often thought that they had kept “the native style intact, in all its originality,
and the morę so, the simpler, the morę modest, and the earlier it was, the morę
closely connected with the life of the common people.” Warchałowski believed
that the new style in architecture should be permeated with a national element,
which should be sought precisely in “the simplest historie structure. With us, this
is what timber architecture is.” Documentation and studies of wooden architecture
were meant to become the materiał “from which contemporary Polish architects-
-artists can draw and develop.”18
15 Katalog 11-ej wystawy, pp. 3-23.
16 iv sprawozdanie Towarzystwa “Polska Sztuka Stosowana’ w Krakowie r. 1905, Kraków 1906,
pp. 12-13; Wystawa zabytków polskiego budownictwa drewnianego, “Naprzód”, 1905, no. 106, p. 1.
17 “Materiały Towarzystwa Polska Sztuka Stosowana”, 1909, no. 12: “Krzyże na Litwie”.
18 “Materiały Towarzystwa Polska Sztuka Stosowana”, 1905, no. 6, pp. 2-3.
232
ARTICLES
Agata Wójcik
the Warsaw exhibition in 1902, drawings and photographs of secular and sacred
timber architecture were shown.15 From 13 April to 15 May 1905, the Society
organized an exhibition in Kraków, documenting the historical wooden struć -
tures thorough Poland. Approximately one thousand drawings and photographs
were presented, from the tpss stock, the National Museum in Kraków, as well as
private collections. The exhibition was given a thematic layout, which consisted
of the following sections: the cottage, the country and town manor with farm
buildings, the arcaded town house, and the religious buildings (churches, syna-
gogues, roadside chapels and crosses). The topographic division was followed as
well, distinguishing between the Spis land, Austrian and Prussian Silesia, Poznań
region, Galicia, the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia, Podoba, Volhynia,
and Ukrainę. Most of the featured sketches and photos were presenting the art
from the territory of the Russian partition and Galicia, especially Podhale (Car-
pathian Foothills). Apart from drawings and photographs, wooden architecture
was documented in books and graphic albums.16
The documentation of wooden architecture reproductions collected by
the tpss included over 720 photographs and 120 drawings. A significant part
of these are currently in the collection of the Print Room of the Main Library
of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, as well as in the Ethnographic Museum
in Kraków. They memorialise monuments of wooden architecture, often already
non-existent at the beginning of the twentieth century, from the lands of the
Silesian Beskids, Upper Silesia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, Subcarpathia,
Carpathian Foothills, Eastern Galicia and the Vilnius region, among others.
The Society also devoted two issues of its own periodical to the monuments
of wooden architecture. The sixth issue (1905) accompanied the Kraków exhibi-
tion, and the twelfth (1909) entitled “Crosses in Lithuania” contained the text
and drawings by Franciszek Krzywda Polkowski who, at the request of Count
Jan Przeździecki, in the summer of 1908, travelled for two months in the Jezio-
rowski and Wilkomierski regions in Lithuania and madę over 100 drawings
depicting roadside crosses, chapels and decorative details of huts, porches, and
granaries.17
For the members of the tpss, the manor houses, cottages and wooden churches
scattered throughout the Polish lands were as“mute witnesses [...] of history, [...]
sensitive organisms through which almost all styles and epochs have passed.”
It was often thought that they had kept “the native style intact, in all its originality,
and the morę so, the simpler, the morę modest, and the earlier it was, the morę
closely connected with the life of the common people.” Warchałowski believed
that the new style in architecture should be permeated with a national element,
which should be sought precisely in “the simplest historie structure. With us, this
is what timber architecture is.” Documentation and studies of wooden architecture
were meant to become the materiał “from which contemporary Polish architects-
-artists can draw and develop.”18
15 Katalog 11-ej wystawy, pp. 3-23.
16 iv sprawozdanie Towarzystwa “Polska Sztuka Stosowana’ w Krakowie r. 1905, Kraków 1906,
pp. 12-13; Wystawa zabytków polskiego budownictwa drewnianego, “Naprzód”, 1905, no. 106, p. 1.
17 “Materiały Towarzystwa Polska Sztuka Stosowana”, 1909, no. 12: “Krzyże na Litwie”.
18 “Materiały Towarzystwa Polska Sztuka Stosowana”, 1905, no. 6, pp. 2-3.
232
ARTICLES
Agata Wójcik