Studia Waweliana (11/12.2002-2003)

SOME REMARKS ON VIEWS OF WAWEL IN THE POLISH GRAPHIC ARTS OF THE PERIOD

BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

S u m m a r y

Wawel Hill, together with the castle and the cathedral, was one of
freąuent subjects in Polish painting and graphic art. The interwar period
saw the popularity of publication of graphic portfolios showing the
historical monuments of old Cracow, and especially Wawel. The
present paper is the introduction to the author’s ongoing morę extensive
research on the Wawel subjects in the Polish art of 1900-1939.

The Wawel Royal Castle collections include a set of graphics
depicting the castle and the cathedral along with views from Wawel
Hill executed by Zofia Stankiewicz, Ignacy Pieńkowski, Władysław
Bielecki, Jan Gumowski, and Ignacy Pinkas. They fonn a starting
point for reflections on representations of Wawel in interwar art.

The earliest works, by Zofia Stankiewicz, datę from the early
1920s; these are two colour lithographs entitled Wawel (differing from
each other above all in format, tonę, and kind of paper) and two
etchings Cathedral and A View from Wawel over the Kościuszko
Mound, which originate from the Cracow portfolio. Unfortunately,
the Castle is not in possession of a third etching - Wawel - which
repeats the composition of the above-mentioned lithographs.
Stankiewicz created very expressive etchings, using strong contrasts
of light and dark and of black and white, and a vigorous sharp linę.
Her lithographs in tum are distinguished by the bold juxtaposition of
intense, sometimes very bright, colours, contrasting with one another.

In 1926 the Views of Cracow portfolio came out which contained
lithographs by Jan Kanty Gumowski, including three views of
Wawel: The Wawel Cathedral, The Courtyard of the Wawel Royal
Castle and A Detali of the Arcaded Gallery of the Wawel Royal
Castle. The artist tried to render the architecture of the cathedral
and the castle in a documentary way, however without overwhelming
the beholder with too many details.

The coloured woodcutT Fiew of Wawelfrom the South is entirely
different in character; a work by Władysław Bielecki, an artist now
forgotten, it dates from about 1926. Bielecki tried to expenment
with paper and colour, combining in the Wawel print the achieve-
ments of Japanese woodcut, Impressionism, and the Cracow school
of landscape, but avoiding excessive decorativeness which is
characteristic of many of his works. His woodcuts, very popular in
the interwar period, were freąuently reproduced on postcards, also
dunng the Second World War.

An engraving by Ignacy Pieńkowski, entitled A Detail of the
Cathedral with the Sigismund Chapel, which belonged to the Cracow
portfolio, published in Cracow in 1928, is less interesting. This is a
highly conventional piece, attracting the viewer’s attention neither
by composition nor by technical Solutions. The lithograph evidently
refers to prints from the Cracow portfolio published in 1911, but is
defmitely inferior to them.

The year 1935 saw the publication of a portfolio by Ignacy
Pinkas, entitled Cracow in Ten Colour Autolithographs. It included
the following works: Wawel - the Clock Tower; Wawel - the Hen ś
Foot; Wawel - the Sigismund Chapel; and Wawel - Bathoryś
Courtyard. The Pinkas lithographs discussed here are interesting in
artistic and documentary terms; it is to be regretted that the artist’s
death prevented him from publishing them in colour, which appears
only in some parts of them.

This brief discussion of the Wawel theme in the works of some
artists of the interwar period makes one realize how vast a subject it
is and how thorough research it reąuires. The interesting problem
of reproducing graphic works on postcards published before the
Second World War is merely indicated here.