Szkolnictwo artystyczne w Wolnym Mieście Krakowie

Abstract

ARTISTIC EDUCATION IN THE FREE CITY OF KRAKÓW

Since the late pre-partition period, painters had been freeing themselves from the guild structures and passing under the aegis of the Kraków Academy. In 1816, two projects to organise an art school were developed by Józef Brodowski and Józef Peszka, painters who played a dominant role in the initial period of the school’s existence, which was linked to the Jagiellonian University as the Academy (School) of Fine Arts or the School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. Sculpture was taught by arrivals from Vienna: Józef Riedlinger, followed by Józef Schmelzer. The system of teaching, modelled on foreign academies (including Vienna), emphasised the practice of drawing (from the simplest elements to complex layouts) and, in accordance with the aesthetic concepts of Neoclassicism, copying patterns recognised as ideals of beauty, including casts of Greek sculptures from the classical era and reproductions of Italian Renaissance paintings. The next stage, when the School functioned within the Technical Institute, was dominated by the personality of Wojciech Korneli Stattler. He promoted, due to objections not always effectively, his own didactic program, emphasising the study of nature and a method of teaching drawing and painting which separated separating technical skills (art of painting) from the essence of painting, requiring intellectual predispositions. This stage began in 1834 with a competition for the head of the painting department (vacant since 1831 after Peszka’s death). The results of the competition (the jury elected Rafał Hadziewicz by a large majority of votes) were disregarded by the Senate of the Free City and the position was entrusted to Stattler. Jan Nepomucen Głowacki (landscape painting) and Jan Nepomucen Bizański (third participant of the 1834 competition, teaching anatomy and perspective) played an important role alongside him. In 1839, the Faculty of Sculpture was restored – it was taken over by Karol Ceptowski, who won a competition for this position. The organisation of artistic education was a significant achievement of the Free City of Kraków, far exceeding the standard of Kraków art of that time and creating a solid base for its later development.