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Did you know that A glance at Kraków By virtue of the incorporation charter of 5 June 1257, duke Bolesław the Chaste revived the city devastated after the Mongol invasion and determined its shape, which was preserved for centuries. How did Kraków develop, based on the Magdeburg Law? How did its landmark buildings change? Finally, what was the image of the city held by travellers, drawers and cartographers? The vistas of Kraków stored in museums and archives can drop some hints. Through our intermediary, a wider audience can admire them. We would like to call particular attention to a few of our exhibits about Kraków. |
Wilhelm Sasnal, untitled The picture of Wilhelm Sasnal presents a view of the burning Concorde aircraft. The artist recreated the frame from an amateur film made from a car window, which was the only video recording of the disaster at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in 2000. Presented for the first time at the exhibition, Scene 2000, at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, the picture is part of a series of canvases by this artist connected with the subject of disasters and accidents. Despite the fact that Sasnal created a few pictures concerning the subject of the Concorde catastrophe (shown in the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery at the exhibition POPelita), each of them should be perceived as a separate work, and not a specific work cycle. Sasnal’s deep fascination with recordings showing the course of the catastrophe may indicate the artist’s desire to reach the “truth”, to spot what was hidden under the layer of words, descriptions, and interpretations. This pursuit is driven by the awareness of the impossibility of achieving the goal. |
Ogawa Shinji, “View of Delft (“Behind You” series)” Ogawa using the classic medium reproduces the work of the Dutch master Jan Vermeer's View of Delft. Realistic, 17th-century image shows a fragment of the city along the waterfront of the river Schie. |
Painting “Oil wells of Lipinki” by Tadeusz Rybkowski The oil painting—Oil wells in Lipinki—by Tadeusz Rybkowski was painted in 1894. Originally, it was hung at the manor of the Byszewski family in Lipinki, a town rich in oil deposits and well-known for its exploitation and processing of these resources. |
“Landscape with staffage” by Salvator Rosa Salvator Rosa painted portraits, battle, mythological, and religious scenes, as well as imaginary landscapes. In Rosa’s landscapes, human and animal staffage plays a subordinate role in the composition, whose disturbing, poetic mood is evoked by representations of rocks, twisted trees, and ancient ruins. |
Woodcut “Bright Weather after the Snow Storm in Kameyama” by Utagawa Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige occupied a special place in the collection by Feliks Jasieński: the collection gathered more than 2,000 woodcut boards by this artist. The abundantly represented landscape genre helps us appreciate Hiroshige as an artist who was considered to be the master of recreating the mood created by snow, rain and fog. |
Painting “Spring in the mountains” by Rafał Malczewski The Tatra Mountains have always fascinated, delighted and bewildered everyone with their power. They have threatened us with their volatility and have punished daredevils severely who have given up their caution. Ultimately, they have been a real artistic challenge for all those who wished to tame them and include all that has always fallen outside any frames on a flat piece of cloth or paper. |
Painting “At the Morskie Oko Lake” (“Tourists in the Tatra Mountains”) It is hard to imagine Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains without tourists. They cross the town and mountain trails with great enthusiasm. The landscape attracts crowds wishing to rest in the shadows of the cool mountains, as well as artists who find an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the overpowering nature. It is assumed that the first painter of the Tatra Mountains was Jan Nepomucen Głowacki (1802–1847) and the first Tatra-related painting is the “View of the Carpathian Mountains from Poronin”, dated 1836. Later this theme was taken up by other painters, like Aleksander Kotsis. It was with him that in 1860 Walery Eljasz took his first trip to Babia Góra from which he saw the Tatra Mountains. A year later he managed to visit them. Since 1866 the mountains became his true passion. Eljasz came from Kraków, from a family where painting and art were the order of the day. |
Muntean/Rosenblum, untitled [“They realized that their capacity…”] [They realized that their capacity for not feeling lonely carried very real price, which was the threat of feeling nothing at all.] Four young people appear to be taking drugs in a forest. This suspicion is at odds with the ambiance of the attractive forest and sunlight filtered through the trees. An integral part of the painting is a poetic declaration which implies a risky experiment. It entails a statement of the absence of loneliness. However, the painted protagonists appear to be entirely lonely; they do not even notice their own presence. If so, they only have themselves to thank for their lack of loneliness. |
“Giardino Giusti” by Jan Stanisławski The Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków stores several landscapes of small sizes typical of the painter. The landscape painting, Giardino Guisti, depicts the famous gardens of the Pallazo Giardino Giusti in Verona. |
“La Certosa” by Jan Stanisławski Jan Stanisławski (1860–1907) is one of the greatest painters of the Young Poland period and an excellent landscape painter, known primarily for his miniature scenery painting. At the end of the 19th century, Stanisławski made numerous artistic journeys. He visited Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. He also travelled many times to his homeland: Ukraine. |
“The Little Garden” by Jan Stanisławski Jan Stanisławski (1860–1907) is one of the greatest painters of the Young Poland period and an excellent landscape painter, known primarily for his miniature landscapes. The Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków stores several landscapes of small sizes typical of the painter. Among them is the painting entitled The Little Garden. |
“The Garden in Dębniki” by Jan Stanisławski Jan Stanisławski (1860–1907) is one of the greatest painters of the Young Poland period and an excellent landscape painter, known primarily for his miniature landscapes. The Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków stores several landscapes of small sizes typical of the painter. Among them is a painting depicting a garden in Dębniki near Kraków. |
“A pastoral scene against the landscape” by Peter Philipp Roos The present picture shows a pastoral scene typical of the painter. The work is kept in a warm, narrow colour range dominated by bronzes. The weather, captured perfectly by the painter, evokes the impression of hot and humid August afternoons: dark, stormy clouds are hanging over the hot, steaming earth below which birds are flying, escaping from the impending storm. |
Painting “View of Mikołajska's Gate” by Teodor Baltazar Stachowicz This is a view of a part of Mikołajska Street, closed by Mikołajska's Gate. On the left, you can see the characteristic window grates and the gutter protruding on the street, and, on the right, a fragmentary view of the Church of Our Lady of the Snows in Gródek can be seen. The gate is covered with a tent roof with a break—the hole in the base is topped with a sharp arch. |
Painting “City Hall north view” by Teodor Baltazar Stachowicz The view shows the edifice of the city hall on the Main Square in Kraków, according to its state before its demolition in 1820. In the foreground, you can see the Renaissance part of the complex with the characteristic attic; on the left, the upper parts of the city hall tower. |
Bartosz Kokosiński, “Picture devouring a landscape painting” Taking up the fight with the two-dimensionality of the painter’s medium, Bartosz Kokosiński inflates the structure of the canvases with foam, deforms them, and radically bends their stretched frames. He deconstructs the painting as an artistic medium. In his most famous series – paintings devouring reality (2010–2015) – the canvases have been transformed into expanded objects, drawing in collections of various things, found by Kokosiński at flea markets, attics, and in the studios of befriended artists. |
Painting “View of Kraków's north fortification” by Józef Brodowski A view of the northern section of Kraków's defensive walls with the Barbican, the neck connecting it with Florian Gate and the towers, from the left: Karczmarzy I, Pasamoników, Stolarska and Ciesielska. On the far right is the one-storey Kleparz building. The ring of fortifications, with wall towers and gate towers, surrounding Kraków, was built during the Middle Ages and became a characteristic element of the city's panorama. A significant part of the defensive walls was built at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the southern part of the city, they were probably completed in the1st quarter of the 14th century. From the mid-14th century, the fortifications were maintained at the cost of the city and gradually expanded. o Craftspeople of various specialities were responsible for the direct care of their individual sections, from whom the names of the towers were derived. |
Perfume bottle with a miniature landscape scene The porcelain perfume bottle is flat and has a round body, as well as a short neck. The sides of the body are fluted. On its surface, there is a miniature painting in a golden frame with the representation of two buildings against the background formed by trees. |
An album of woodcuts “One hundred views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai”, the 2nd volume In the collection of the Manggha Centre of Japanese Art and Technology, there is an edition of the work 100 views of Mount Fuji by Katsushiki Hokusai. Hokusai was one of the most famous Japanese artists and he created old ukiyo-e woodcuts (Japanese: “a view of the world that passes away”). |