DOI Heft:
Editorial
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26693#0017
Editorial
1S
had The Goncourt Journals for its literary prototype, though the similarity is rather super-
ficial. Jasieńskis work is not only a key to understanding his fascinating personality but
also an irreplaceable source of information on his views on art.
Manggha features in a great number of painted and photographic portraits. Leon
Wyczółkowskis oil Feliks Jasieński at an Organ (1902) holds a special place amongst them.
It is not by accident that this portrait was chosen for the cover of this volume. Jasieński
playing the harmonium (he is known to have been a musician of remarkable talent) is
set in an symbolic, sketched only interior where traces of an old fresco are barely visible
on the walls behind. A monumental, damaged crucifhc stretched above the player forms
a unique pendant to Mangghas dark, compact silhouette, and fosters associations with
the National Museum in Kraków as it is the extant figurę of Christ Crucified (ca. 1520) from
the Church of St. Adalbert in Stary Wiśnicz, which Jan Matejko offered to the Museum
in 1889. In Jasieńskis times it was on view at the Cloth Hall, positioned against the back-
ground of painted planks from a Gothic ceiling in the Church of SS. Simon and Jude
Thaddeus in Kozy. In Wyczółkowskis canvas this destruct, picked out by the painter from
the colourful background and free of any references to a museum setting, takes on a new
meaning and a different expressiveness. The artists contemporaries claimed quite rightly
it had a deeply religious, nearly mystic sense, reinforced by the context of a sacral interior,
with its painterly and sculptural furnishing and a musical instrument on which religious
musie must have been played. That the portrait is so sketchy is not a coincidence: it is in
this technique that Jasieński would find a manifestation of his personality and a meas-
ure of real talent. Formed through non-stop observation of great artists'creative practice
and reflecting a special aesthetic attitude of the late 19th century, which accepted infinito
as an aesthetic category, Jasieńskis views touch upon the essence of art. This is exactly
what Wyczółkowskis portrait communicates through its sketchy form and the selection
of motifs presenting the subject in an incomplete form, as it were. Both the monumental
destruct of a carved crucifbt and the outlines of a mural looming in the background, which
the viewer sees as sketches, are powerfully suggestive of such senses. Being a very personal
work (it has the painters dedication), the portrait shows Jasieński surrounded by what was
the closest to him: the environment of art presented in what he deemed the most perfect
form: a sketchy, poetic and implicit “recording of a dream”. It would be hard to think of
a morę accurate exemplification of his philosophy and work.
Outlining the personality of Feliks Manggha Jasieński, we inevitably touch upon many
aspects of which only some are discussed in this publication. A one-of-the-kind intellec-
tual biography is presented in Bronisława Gumińskas Feliks Manggha Jasieński. “We all
dream of reaching the moon”, which opens Volume III of The Papers. This erudite essay
devoted to the collector and his work is an insightful attempt to reread his personality and
shed a new light on the ”genius of Jasieński”. In her article You old beast, so close to my heart
Stefania Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska uses yet unpublished correspondence to Jasieński
from his morę or less close friends and acquaintances. Abundantly quoted texts, from seri-
ous to humorous letters, posteards or notes on visiting cards, bring the senders back to life
(they were often important figures of the Polish cultural life of 1883-1923), reviving also
the main concerns of the literary and artistic community of the time as the key context for
Jasieńskis activity as an art collector, art patron who consciously building his collection,
1S
had The Goncourt Journals for its literary prototype, though the similarity is rather super-
ficial. Jasieńskis work is not only a key to understanding his fascinating personality but
also an irreplaceable source of information on his views on art.
Manggha features in a great number of painted and photographic portraits. Leon
Wyczółkowskis oil Feliks Jasieński at an Organ (1902) holds a special place amongst them.
It is not by accident that this portrait was chosen for the cover of this volume. Jasieński
playing the harmonium (he is known to have been a musician of remarkable talent) is
set in an symbolic, sketched only interior where traces of an old fresco are barely visible
on the walls behind. A monumental, damaged crucifhc stretched above the player forms
a unique pendant to Mangghas dark, compact silhouette, and fosters associations with
the National Museum in Kraków as it is the extant figurę of Christ Crucified (ca. 1520) from
the Church of St. Adalbert in Stary Wiśnicz, which Jan Matejko offered to the Museum
in 1889. In Jasieńskis times it was on view at the Cloth Hall, positioned against the back-
ground of painted planks from a Gothic ceiling in the Church of SS. Simon and Jude
Thaddeus in Kozy. In Wyczółkowskis canvas this destruct, picked out by the painter from
the colourful background and free of any references to a museum setting, takes on a new
meaning and a different expressiveness. The artists contemporaries claimed quite rightly
it had a deeply religious, nearly mystic sense, reinforced by the context of a sacral interior,
with its painterly and sculptural furnishing and a musical instrument on which religious
musie must have been played. That the portrait is so sketchy is not a coincidence: it is in
this technique that Jasieński would find a manifestation of his personality and a meas-
ure of real talent. Formed through non-stop observation of great artists'creative practice
and reflecting a special aesthetic attitude of the late 19th century, which accepted infinito
as an aesthetic category, Jasieńskis views touch upon the essence of art. This is exactly
what Wyczółkowskis portrait communicates through its sketchy form and the selection
of motifs presenting the subject in an incomplete form, as it were. Both the monumental
destruct of a carved crucifbt and the outlines of a mural looming in the background, which
the viewer sees as sketches, are powerfully suggestive of such senses. Being a very personal
work (it has the painters dedication), the portrait shows Jasieński surrounded by what was
the closest to him: the environment of art presented in what he deemed the most perfect
form: a sketchy, poetic and implicit “recording of a dream”. It would be hard to think of
a morę accurate exemplification of his philosophy and work.
Outlining the personality of Feliks Manggha Jasieński, we inevitably touch upon many
aspects of which only some are discussed in this publication. A one-of-the-kind intellec-
tual biography is presented in Bronisława Gumińskas Feliks Manggha Jasieński. “We all
dream of reaching the moon”, which opens Volume III of The Papers. This erudite essay
devoted to the collector and his work is an insightful attempt to reread his personality and
shed a new light on the ”genius of Jasieński”. In her article You old beast, so close to my heart
Stefania Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska uses yet unpublished correspondence to Jasieński
from his morę or less close friends and acquaintances. Abundantly quoted texts, from seri-
ous to humorous letters, posteards or notes on visiting cards, bring the senders back to life
(they were often important figures of the Polish cultural life of 1883-1923), reviving also
the main concerns of the literary and artistic community of the time as the key context for
Jasieńskis activity as an art collector, art patron who consciously building his collection,