Stanisław Witkiewicz
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2010) |
Stanisław Witkiewicz (Lithuanian: Stanislovas Vitkevičius) (8 May 1851 – 5 September 1915[1]) was a Polish painter of Lithuanian origin, art theoretician, and amateur architect, known for his creation of "Zakopane Style".[2][3]
Life
Witkiewicz was born in the Samogitian village of Pašiaušė,[1] present-day Lithuania, in the lands of the partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled at the time by the Russian Empire.
As an adolescent, he spent several years in Siberian Tomsk, where his parents and two older siblings were exiled for their support of the January Uprising.[1] He was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg (1868–1871) and furthered his education in Munich (1872–1875). During his stay in Munich, he befriended painters Aleksander Gierymski, Józef Chełmoński and Henryk Siemiradzki.[1]
In 1875, he moved to Warsaw and set up a painting workshop in the laundry at the Hotel Europejski. In 1884, he married Maria Pietrzkiewicz. The pair had a son, Stanisław Ignacy.[1] The son's godmother was the internationally famous actress Helena Modjeska, whom the elder Witkiewicz in 1876 had nearly accompanied to California in the United States.
In 1884–1887, Witkiewicz worked as the artistic director of "Wędrowiec" weekly, for which he wrote a series of articles concerning the values of a work of art and the role of art critics (published in book form under the title "Painting and criticism among us", Sztuka i krytyka u nas, in 1891 and 1899).[1] In 1887, he held the same position in "Kłosy" magazine.[4]
In 1886, he visited
He formulated the
Witkiewicz had strong views against formal education: "school is completely at odds with the psychological make-up of human beings". He applied this principle in his son's upbringing and was disappointed when the 20-year-old Witkacy chose to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
In 1908, suffering from tuberculosis, the elder Witkiewicz left his family in Zakopane and relocated to Lovran, a fashionable resort in what was then Austria-Hungary, which today is in Croatia. He died there in 1915.
His first monographic art exhibition was staged in
Selected publications
- "Odpowiedź na ankietę Policja a sztuka]”. Policja a sztuka ["Response to the survey The police and art"] (1902), „Krytyka IV: 275–280” [8]
- "Chrześcijaństwo i katechizm. O nauce religii w szkołach galicyjskich" ["Christianity and the catechism. About the teaching of religion in Galician schools"] (1904),
- "Wallenrodyzm czy znikczemnienie" ["Wallenrod-ism or becoming ignoble"] (published in "Kultura Polski" 1917, a fragment of the work "Studium o duszy polskiej po 1863 roku" ["A study of the Polish soul after 1863"],
- "Przełom" ["Turning point"],
- "Życie, etyka i rewolucja" ["Life, ethics and revolution"],
- "Na przełęczy. Wrażenia i obrazy z Tatr" ["On the mountain pass. Impressions and images from the Tatra mountains"] (1891, first published in "Tygodnik Illustrowany" 1889–1890),
- "Po latach" ["Years later"] (1905),
- "Z Tatr" ["From the Tatra mountains"] (1907),
- Monographs: "Juliusz Kossak" (1900), "Aleksander Gierymski" (1903), "Matejko" (1908).
Selected paintings
-
Autumn Pasturage,National Museum, Kraków
-
Ukrainian night,National Museum, Kraków
-
On the Baltic atNational Museum, Warsaw
-
Sheep in the Mist
-
Siberian Troika
-
Black Pond
-
Crocuses with snowy mountains in the background,National Museum, Kraków
-
Apple Trees in Bloom,National Museum, Kraków
-
Spring landscape with a pond,National Museum, Kraków
-
Narrow gate,National Museum, Warsaw
-
Pasture land,National Museum, Warsaw
See also
- List of Poles
- Bronisław Linke
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Kossowska, Irena. "Stanisław Witkiewicz". culture.pl. Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
- ISBN 978-1472454560.
- ^ S2CID 163455295.
- ^ Nowakowska, Wanda (1970). Stanisław Witkiewicz, teoretyk sztuki (in Polish). Ossolineum. p. 18.
- ^ Edyta Barucka (2010). "Redefining Polishness: The Revival of Crafts in Galicia around 1900". Acta Slavica Iaponica. 28: 83, 86.
- ISBN 978-0520211902.
- ^ See picture in Polish article on styl zakopiański
- ISSN 2392-1617.