Artykuł recenzyjny: Zbigniew Michalczyk: Michał Stachowicz (1768–1825) – krakowski malarz między barokiem a romantyzmem. Warszawa 2011, t. 1, 346 s., t. 2, 528 s.

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.