DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41455#0053
Artur
Grottger
1837 Ottyniowice in Podolia - 1867 Amelie-les-Bains
Artur Grottger’s father, Jan Jozef, was a painter edu-
cated at the Viennese Academy, but he made his
living as a leaseholder in Galicia. He was the first
art teacher to his son, who showed a great artistic talent
from his earliest years. In 1848 or 1850, Artur was sent to
Lvov to learn drawing and painting with Jan Maszkow-
ski and Juliusz Kossak. He sold his first works already in
1851. The buyer, Count Alexander von Pappenheim,
became the artist’s patron and friend for many years. In
the following year, the watercolour showing The Entry
ofFranz Josef into Lvov won Grottger an imperial schol-
arship, which he received each year until 1863- The
scholarship allowed him to move to Cracow in 1852 to
attend secondary school while also studying at the School
of Fine Arts under Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz and Woj-
ciech Korneli Stattler. During his two-year stay in Cra-
cow, Grottger met Jan Matejko and several celebrities of
the artistic and literary world: Wincenty Pol, Lucjan Sie-
mienski and January Suchodolski. He usually spent the
summer months at his friends’ manor houses in Galicia.
Towards the end of 1854, Grottger went to Vienna,
where he studied intermittently at the Academy from
1855 to 1859 (or perhaps even 1862). Of his many in-
structors, he held Peter Geiger in highest esteem. Grot-
tger submitted his diploma study in 1859, and in the
same year began to work for Viennese periodicals. He
also provided materials for the Polish journal Postgp [Pro-
gress! published in Vienna, of which he became editor
in 1862. This undertaking, however, left him in serious
financial difficulties.
Grottger stayed in Vienna until 1865, frequently vis-
iting his friends and patrons in their Galician and Hun-
garian estates. He also made trips to Munich and Ven-
ice. From 1861, he was preoccupied by developments
in the Kingdom of Poland. Grottger did not take part in
the January Uprising, but helped the emigres and orga-
nized supplies of armaments. He devoted monumental
cycles of drawings to the January Uprising and to the
events that led to its outbreak. The very first of these,
Warsaw I (1861), had a tremendous impact in Poland.
“Those drawings,” wrote Stanislaw Tarnowski, “...reached...
every place and made Grottger famous in the remotest
corners of Poland not only as an artist, but also as a
comforter of the nation who did justice to patriotic and
noble feelings, the sense of injury and the enthusiasm
of the moment.” The drawing cycles became an impor-
tant part of Grottger’s oeuvre and established his posi-
tion in the history of Polish art.
Beset with financial problems in Vienna, Grottger re-
turned to Galicia in 1865. He divided his time between
the countryside (he was often invited by admirers of his
art, who had grown numerous by that time), Cracow
and Lvov. In the latter city he got engaged to Wanda
Monne in 1866. Towards the end of that year he left for
France. As a Polish artist of great renown, he was re-
ceived by the leaders of the Polish emigres in Paris (the
so-called Hotel Lambert party). Suffering from an incur-
able lung disease, he nevertheless kept working to the
last. In the autumn of 1867, Grottger went for a course
of treatment to Pau and then to Amelie-les-Bains, where
he soon died.
In his final years, Grottger was considered to be Po-
land’s greatest painter besides Matejko, but he was una-
ble (or did not have the time) to translate fame into
financial success. His art did not exert any appreciable
influence on the formal development of Polish painting.
On the other hand, the iconographic motifs contained
in his works were often reused and persisted in the pat-
riotically oriented vein of Polish art well into the twen-
tieth century. Apart from the generally known drawing
cycles, Grottger’s legacy consists of numerous historical
and genre scenes, created with a view to publication in
the press. Although the artist specialized in mono-
chrome works, his watercolours and oils reveal a consid-
erable sensitivity to colour and ability to recreate the
mood of a landscape.
The importance of Grottger for Polish art has been
aptly characterized by Mieczyslaw Tretter: “Proba-
bly, Grottger’s drawings - when judged today from the
point of view of their purely formal merits - fall short
of being timeless and invariably topical masterpieces
that set the course of development for generations of
artists. But Grottger’s mission was not to search for new
forms, formulate new slogans, or reject former views
and ideas.”
50
Grottger
1837 Ottyniowice in Podolia - 1867 Amelie-les-Bains
Artur Grottger’s father, Jan Jozef, was a painter edu-
cated at the Viennese Academy, but he made his
living as a leaseholder in Galicia. He was the first
art teacher to his son, who showed a great artistic talent
from his earliest years. In 1848 or 1850, Artur was sent to
Lvov to learn drawing and painting with Jan Maszkow-
ski and Juliusz Kossak. He sold his first works already in
1851. The buyer, Count Alexander von Pappenheim,
became the artist’s patron and friend for many years. In
the following year, the watercolour showing The Entry
ofFranz Josef into Lvov won Grottger an imperial schol-
arship, which he received each year until 1863- The
scholarship allowed him to move to Cracow in 1852 to
attend secondary school while also studying at the School
of Fine Arts under Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz and Woj-
ciech Korneli Stattler. During his two-year stay in Cra-
cow, Grottger met Jan Matejko and several celebrities of
the artistic and literary world: Wincenty Pol, Lucjan Sie-
mienski and January Suchodolski. He usually spent the
summer months at his friends’ manor houses in Galicia.
Towards the end of 1854, Grottger went to Vienna,
where he studied intermittently at the Academy from
1855 to 1859 (or perhaps even 1862). Of his many in-
structors, he held Peter Geiger in highest esteem. Grot-
tger submitted his diploma study in 1859, and in the
same year began to work for Viennese periodicals. He
also provided materials for the Polish journal Postgp [Pro-
gress! published in Vienna, of which he became editor
in 1862. This undertaking, however, left him in serious
financial difficulties.
Grottger stayed in Vienna until 1865, frequently vis-
iting his friends and patrons in their Galician and Hun-
garian estates. He also made trips to Munich and Ven-
ice. From 1861, he was preoccupied by developments
in the Kingdom of Poland. Grottger did not take part in
the January Uprising, but helped the emigres and orga-
nized supplies of armaments. He devoted monumental
cycles of drawings to the January Uprising and to the
events that led to its outbreak. The very first of these,
Warsaw I (1861), had a tremendous impact in Poland.
“Those drawings,” wrote Stanislaw Tarnowski, “...reached...
every place and made Grottger famous in the remotest
corners of Poland not only as an artist, but also as a
comforter of the nation who did justice to patriotic and
noble feelings, the sense of injury and the enthusiasm
of the moment.” The drawing cycles became an impor-
tant part of Grottger’s oeuvre and established his posi-
tion in the history of Polish art.
Beset with financial problems in Vienna, Grottger re-
turned to Galicia in 1865. He divided his time between
the countryside (he was often invited by admirers of his
art, who had grown numerous by that time), Cracow
and Lvov. In the latter city he got engaged to Wanda
Monne in 1866. Towards the end of that year he left for
France. As a Polish artist of great renown, he was re-
ceived by the leaders of the Polish emigres in Paris (the
so-called Hotel Lambert party). Suffering from an incur-
able lung disease, he nevertheless kept working to the
last. In the autumn of 1867, Grottger went for a course
of treatment to Pau and then to Amelie-les-Bains, where
he soon died.
In his final years, Grottger was considered to be Po-
land’s greatest painter besides Matejko, but he was una-
ble (or did not have the time) to translate fame into
financial success. His art did not exert any appreciable
influence on the formal development of Polish painting.
On the other hand, the iconographic motifs contained
in his works were often reused and persisted in the pat-
riotically oriented vein of Polish art well into the twen-
tieth century. Apart from the generally known drawing
cycles, Grottger’s legacy consists of numerous historical
and genre scenes, created with a view to publication in
the press. Although the artist specialized in mono-
chrome works, his watercolours and oils reveal a consid-
erable sensitivity to colour and ability to recreate the
mood of a landscape.
The importance of Grottger for Polish art has been
aptly characterized by Mieczyslaw Tretter: “Proba-
bly, Grottger’s drawings - when judged today from the
point of view of their purely formal merits - fall short
of being timeless and invariably topical masterpieces
that set the course of development for generations of
artists. But Grottger’s mission was not to search for new
forms, formulate new slogans, or reject former views
and ideas.”
50