Artykuł recenzyjny: Zbigniew Michalczyk: Michał Stachowicz (1768–1825) – krakowski malarz między barokiem a romantyzmem. Warszawa 2011, t. 1, 346 s., t. 2, 528 s.
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: A REVIEW OF ZBIGNIEW MICHALCZYK’S BOOK: MICHAŁ STACHOWICZ (1768– 1825) – KRAKOWSKI MALARZ MIĘDZY BAROKIEM A ROMANTYZMEM. WARSZAWA 2011 Zbigniew Michalczyk’s extensive, two-volume book titled Michał Stachowicz (1768–1825) – krakowski malarz między barokiem a romantyzmem [Michał Stachowicz (1768–1825). A Kraków painter between the baroque and Romanticism] is the result of the immense work undertaken by the author to thoroughly research the oeuvre of Michał Stachowicz. One of the book’s greatest merits is the elaborate, in-depth presentation of the artist’s works against a backdrop of the social, political and cultural transformations taking place at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the guild system was slowly yielding to modern academic structures, bourgeois culture was becoming increasingly influential, Polish national iconography was in statu nascendi, and there was a growing interest in the history of Poland and in local, native culture. The author has conducted thorough preliminary archival research and built a solid factual foundation for his study. He has drawn up a professional catalogue of Stachowicz’s works, reviewing the findings heretofore published in the literature on the subject, and has put forward a number of his own hypotheses. In his book, Michalczyk presents a penetrating reinterpretation of Stachowicz’s artistic output (wall paintings, oil paintings, drawings, gouaches, watercolours, sketchbooks, examples of manuscript illumination), debunks stereotyped opinions, and takes the reader on a journey to the origins of the artist’s creative activity, i.e. the baroque tradition. The author reveals a number of Stachowicz’s works which until now have remained unknown. He also sheds light on the problem of the beginnings of the modern functioning of art and the birth of art criticism. He discusses the issue of historicism in Stachowicz’s works using such examples as the decoration of Jagiellonian Hall at Collegium Maius, the chapel at Bishops’ Palace, and the design of a neo-Gothic well decorated with scenes from the legend of Prince Krak and Princess Wanda. The author even claims that Stachowicz’s artistic activity inaugurated the beginning of the 19th century – the age of history and historicism – in Kraków. Michalczyk presents Stachowicz, the most popular Kraków painter of his time, as the precursor of mass culture, supporting his hypothesis with the fact that he created many copies of some of his works, the themes he used were rooted in his native, contemporary reality, and the messages he conveyed were clear and significant for his nation. The works he addressed to the mass audience promoted patriotism and fascination with the past, and constituted the artist’s commentary on topical events. The author describes the cultural phenomena that favoured the popularity of Stachowicz’s works and the factors which decisively influenced his choice of subjects. Reflected in them is the cult of prepartition times (i.e. Poland’s glorious past before the partition of the country in 1772), of Wawel Castle, Polish kings, the independent Republic of Poland and its national heroes. Michalczyk brilliantly outlines the evolution of national and historical themes in Stachowicz’s oeuvre, which, by the way, is not an easy task, and at the same time he emphasizes the artist’s almost complete creative dependence on his patrons (e.g. the paintings in Jagiellonian Hall were executed strictly in accordance with the original idea of architect Sebastian Sierakowski and Prof. Józef Sołtykowicz, and the decoration of Bishops’ Palace expressed the concept of Bishop Jan Paweł Woronicz). So far, we have known Stachowicz as a mere craftsman, a mediocre, provincial painter and the last notable guild artist in Kraków, the executor of other people’s ideas who did not contribute much to the ideological content of the works he produced. And yet, somehow this unremarkably gifted, unoriginal artist managed to achieve a very high position in Kraków. The explanation of his phenomenon is precisely what we find in Michalczyk’s book. Written in a limpid style, this dissertation shows the author’s versatile and broad academic interests, offering an extremely valuable, novel perspective on Stachowicz’s works. The book, printed in A4 format, has been meticulously edited and represents outstanding academic quality. One of its greatest assets is the large number of illustrations, which enables the reader to assimilate the information about the works discussed more easily, and gives him/her a chance to make comparisons. The book’s composition, its division into chapters reflects the choice of subjects explored by Stachowicz as they are identified by the author and illustrates the complexity of the issues under analysis. The artistic legacy of Michał Stachowicz, one of the most interesting and the most representative painters active at the turn of the 18th and the 19th centuries and affected by the social and cultural transformations of his times, has finally become the subject of a solid, detailed, academic study.
Author: Elżbieta Firlet
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225617390
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