Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (1(37).2012/2013)

Antoni Ziemba

I The Newly Refurbished Galleries
of European Old Masters and of Old Polish
and European Portraiture
In its i5oth-anniversary year, the National Museum in Warsaw unveiled its reorganized gal-
leries of old painting, the Gallery of European Old Masters and the Gallery of Old Polish and
European Portraiture. Their narrative order has changed, with a new arrangement replacing
the traditional periodization sequences and stylistic developments within “national schools,”
such as Netherlandish, German, Italian, Dutch or Old Polish. The new narrative seeks to spot-
light the original functions of the works and to display the variety of iconographie types and
forms within their social context. It asks the viewer: Why and for whom were the paintings
created? What was their ideological and social message? Whose aspirations and intentions
did they express? What were the functions of their customs and rituals? The new arrange-
ment ties many fragmentaiy narratives into a universal panorama of Old European painting.
We do not want to hide the differences between periods and regions - we have kept some
traditional chronological and geographical classifications - but above all we have chosen to
expose the diversity within collectivity. We wanted to juxtapose the achievements of the ar-
tistic communities of South and North, of Italian and French with Netherlandish, Flemish,
Dutch and German painting. We now show groups of works according to the hierarchy of
genres created by the Renaissance theory of art. Hence, the sequence of galleries. On the
second floor is the gallery of the most highly valued large and small “histories,” high Biblical,
mythological, allegorical and literary themes. On the first floor, apart from the portrait gal-
lery, in the avant-corps of the building, is the gallery of landscapes in its many forms: the
heroic, the picturesque and the realistic-topographic. Cabinet and salon paintings of “low”
subjects, genre paintings, animals and still lifes are displayed in the ground floor avant-corps.
Now, the topography of the individual galleries from the upper floors down to the ground
floor reflects the pyramid of painting genres, from the highest “histories” to the lowest still
lifes. The visitor can start on the bottom rungs of the ladder and climb to the heights of the
large and small “histories,” or do the reverse.
Old art theory considered religious, mythological and allegorical subjects to be the most
noble and “highest,” calling them “histories” (stone). These multifigural compositions, as well as
individual figures, have their sources in the literatures of antiquity, the Bible and Christianity.
This category of painting is the most ambitious, expecting the viewer to have a knowledge of
theology and the humanities. The “histories” played a liturgical role in church altars, a com-
memorative one in epitaphs and a devotional one in private prayer paintings in homes and
chapels; they functioned to decorate and to impart political glory on residences and public
buildings and, finally, served to delight eyes and minds in the collections of connoisseurs.
Cult paintings in altar settings preached the truths of faith and illustrated objects of religious
veneration; devotional paintings inspired prayer and meditation on Incarnation, Passion and