# Cracow, the royal capital of ancient Poland: its history and antiquities/Art from the Renascence to the Present Time

ART FROM THE RENASCENCE TO THE PRESENT TIME
​ART FROM THE RENASCENCE TO THE PRESENT TIME
THE golden age of Polish civilization was that of Renascence Architecture. A great fire in 1499 had turned the royal castle on the Wawel into a ruin. Sigismund the Old, then only Crown Prince, and living at the Hungarian Court, was already endeavouring to find an opportunity for coming into contact with Italian artists. In
55. THE ROYAL CASTLE, WAWEL (SEEN FROM THE EAST). Hungary he bought, from Italian architects, plans for the castle to be erected, and in 1502 he called Franciscus Italus to Cracow, who built the western part of the palace, with the entrance door and the oriel. This oriel, attached to the short wing at the height of the second story, and facing the court, is of extraordinary beauty and charm. Its ornamentation, resembling that of the ducal palace at Urbino, perfectly equals the finest work of its kind to be found in Italy. This older part was afterwards transformed ​by the Florentine master, Francesco della Lora, in the years 1510-1516, and adapted to the uniform ground-plan of the arcade court. Delia Lora left Florence in 1509, and came to Cracow with six assistants. Sigismund I assigned the sum of 30,000 ducats a year for the building of the new palace; besides, he put a great number of Tartar captives at the disposal of the builders for manual labour. The northern wing of the court was the first to be ready and connected with the western one; in 1516, however, the architect died. In the next year his place was taken by an equally eminent master, Bartolomeo Berecci, who continued work on the eastern and northern parts of the building in accordance with the plans of della Lora. In this he was assisted from 1522 by the Florentine sculptor and architect, Nicolò Castiglione, who died at Cracow in 1545. Finally, on July 21, 1530, the foundation for the last wing, the southern one, was laid. But when the whole palace was completed, in 1536, a fire broke out and destroyed the work of della Lora, viz., the eastern and northern parts of the castle. The indefatigable King Sigismund instantly ordered the parts burnt down to be restored by Berecci, but unfortunately the great artist was soon afterwards assassinated by an Italian. Nevertheless the work was continued under the reign of the following King Sigismund Augustus. It was not till the middle of the sixteenth century that the magnificent Renascence structure was finished. It was unanimously admired and highly praised by all foreigners who visited Cracow and recorded their impressions. Round the imposing square arcade courtyard, with its two stories supported by exquisite slender columns, there are galleries running which are distinguished by easy gracefulness of structure and very original moulding of the wall spaces (illustration 56). These latter show threefold windows, and doors with stone frames, which are partly in pure Renascence style, partly in a mixture of Gothic and Renascence, giving to the ornamentation a peculiarly local character. The abundance and variety of architectonic lines gives a particular charm to the whole. From the lintels the spectator is greeted by Latin sentences. Within there is an ​endless flight of apartments, sometime brilliant, now decayed through having long been used as barrack-rooms. The most splendid of these is the meeting-hall of the Diet of the Realm, with its ceiling adorned by carved heads.
56. THE COURTYARD OF WAWEL CASTLE, NOW IN COURSE OF RESTORATION. The old inventories, containing descriptions of the royal apartments, which were full of most precious objects of art, bear eloquent witness to the grandeur of past times. King Sigismund III, of the Swedish Vasa dynasty, to whom the Jagellonian ​monarchy came as a heritage from his mother, was a laureate baroque artist, both painter and goldsmith, and alchemist too (like his contemporary on the Imperial throne, Rudolf II of Habsburg): it was one of his alchemistic experiments that occasioned the great fire which again destroyed part of the castle, viz., its northern wing. His best architects, Jenrik and Gian Maria Bernardone of Milan, rebuilt that northern wing in the years 1596-1609, and erected a new tower by the side of the old "Hen-foot." But when Sigismund transferred his residence to Warsaw, the slow decay of the castle began, which went on for centuries. Only in 1905 the great restoration was begun on the plans of the present Wawel architect, Sigismund Hendel. As stated above, part of it is to serve as occasional residence for the Emperor, part to contain the National Museum.
Berecci had, in 1517, submitted to the king the plans for the Sigismund Chapel, and it was not long before the foundationstone was laid (May 27, 1519). The architect's assistants were two Italian sculptors: John Cini of Siena and Antonio da Fiesole. Besides, we learn from records in the archives that the royal sculptors Filippo da Fiesole, Nicolo Castiglione, and Guglielmo Fiorentino took part in the adornment of this magnificent structure. Antonio da Fiesole was a pupil of Andrea Sansovino. The grand work of all these artists is a perfect gem among the masterpieces of Renascence art on our side of the Alps. Outwardly, the Sigismund Chapel exhibits a square substructure without windows; the moulding of the walls by means of pilasters is exquisitely elegant and neat. On the architrave appears the date, 1520. On one of the spaces between the pilasters there is an escutcheon with the eagle of the realm and the initials of the royal founder. Above the square substructure there rises an octagonal tholobate, with windows surmounted by round arches and flanked by ornamental pilasters. On this reposes a gilt, scalloped cupola, and above it, a lantern terminating in a ball, on the top of which an Italian putto is seated, with globe and sceptre in his hands. The interior of the chapel, rich in decoration, is in accord with the outside; it is also ​ 57. MONUMENT OF QUEEN ANNE OF THE JAGELLONS, WAWEL CATHEDRAL. ​moulded by pilasters, each one of the large arched niches, into which they divide it, being flanked by two small ones filled by marble statues, with medallions over them, containing busts (illustration 57). In the large niche to the east there is a silver altar (illustration 58). Opposite to this, there stood formerly the cenotaph of King Sigismund I. The red marble figure of the king, represented in full armour, sleeping, is a work of Gian Maria Padovano. After the death of Sigismund Augustus, his sister Anne ordered the monument of Sigismund I to be raised from the ground and a second one for her brother to be placed below it, which was executed by Santi Gucci. On the south side, Queen Anne had a marble throne erected, with a recumbent image of herself on the front of it (illustration 57).
The decoration of the Sigismund Chapel is among the most beautiful specimens of its kind, and the harmonious architectonic proportions, together with the noble structure of the cupola, make the whole a perfect masterpiece of sixteenth-century art. The monumental architecture of the palace exercised a great influence on the whole development of the Polish Renascence; it became a general custom to erect buildings, both sacred and profane, in the new style, on the model of the castle and the cathedral.
The narrow house-fronts of Gothic times were enlarged by the combination of several houses into one; and by pulling down the dividing walls, room was gained for large courts which were a favourite opportunity to Renascence architects for displaying harmonious proportions and architectonic rhythm in galleries and arcades (illustrations 63—65). The beautiful front portal led into an entrance hall. The most characteristic feature of the Cracow Renascence buildings is the so-called attic. Following the example of classic art, the architects of the Renascence laid particular stress on bringing out the horizontal lines; the rule was also observed in the attic, which served to conceal the roof on the front side, and this could be effected the more easily, as the length of house-front had been increased by the means just mentioned. A high rampart with a fantastically-shaped superstructure runs round the ​ 58. SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS OF KING SIGISMUND THE OLD AND HIS SON, KING SIGISMUND AUGUSTUS, IN WAWEL CATHEDRAL. ​border of the roof, which is effectually concealed by it. This attic, moulded by pilasters and arcades, and set between two cornices, is typical of Cracow architecture. An example of this is "Drapers' Hall" (illustration 29), built, as mentioned before, by Padovano.
The columns supporting either arches or wooden architraves with projecting roofs over them, have Ionic capitals, e.g., those in the palace galleries on the Wawel, or in the cloisters of private houses. A remarkable feature is formed by stone blocks of a peculiar basket-like structure, superimposed on the capitals, and establishing the communication between these and the ceiling. Sigismund Augustus, on ascending the throne, found Renascence art fully developed; it had already struck deep roots in native architecture. The first generation of Italians was dying out; before 1550, Guglielmo da Firenze died; he was followed to the grave by Filippo da Fiesole, then by Bernardo de Gianotis of Rome (in 1541), by Antonio da Fiesole (in 1542), and by Nicolò Castiglione in 1545. There remained only Gian de Senis, who was active as both sculptor and architect, from 1532 to 1565. But the ablest of them all is Gian Maria Padovano, who during his long stay in Poland, produced a great number of masterpieces in architecture and sculpture. Among the Polish architects, the first rank is due to Gabriel Slonski, a disciple of Antonio da Fiesole. The excellent portal, of 1550, in Canons' Street, or the interior of a corner house in St. Anne Street (1562) are among the preserved specimens of his workmanship. Of the numerous buildings mentioned in the town records as executed by him, special notice is due to the episcopal palace, which was begun by Master Padovano, and finished by Slonski at the order of Bishop Padniewski (1567).
Slonski died in 1598. The most eminent of his pupils was John Michalowicz of Urzedów, the builder of Bishop Padniewski's chapel of the Three Magi in the Cathedral. A general tendency arose, in this period of the later Renascence, to add new chapels to extant churches; of course the Sigismund chapel served as model and pattern of imitation for all; thus ​there arose, in the Dominican Church, the chapel of St. Hyacinth, erected by the monastic architect, John of Breslau, in 1543; then, there were the chapels of the Myszkowski family (1614), that of the Dukes Lubomirski (1616) with a fine portal,
59. ST. PETER'S CHURCH. and the magnificent marble chapel of the Zbaraski family, a work of the architects Antonio and Andrea Castelli. The treasury of St. Mary's is a specimen of a particular variety of the Northern Renascence.
​The first building in Baroque Style produced at Cracow was the gorgeous church of St. Peter, founded for the Jesuit Order by King Sigismund III (illustration 59). The building was
60. CHAPEL OF ST. STANISLAS IN THE CATHEDRAL. erected on the model of the Jesuits' church il Gesù at Rome, under the superintendence of Gian Maria Bernardone, with Joseph Buscius for collaborator. After the death of Bernardone (1605), the work was continued by John Gislenus, and finally ​completed by John Trevano. In its ground-plan, the church has the shape of a cross, with a grand cupola over its centre; the nave is broad, the concentric side aisles extremely narrow. Excellent in its proportions and in the pictorial aspect of the whole, the church impresses us as a perfect work of art.
The splendour of the edifice is best exemplified by the façade, rich in architectural moulding, and adorned with statues and marble wainscoting. Its conception in its organic entirety is still dominated by the spirit of the Renascence. The enclosure in front of the entrance is formed by statues of the twelve Apostles, all in pathetic attitudes, done by Hieronymus Canavesi. To the same period belongs the sepulchral chapel of St. Stanislas in the cathedral (illustration 60). Another sample of baroque style is the Church of St. Francis of Sales, built by the Jesuit friar, Stanislas Solski, with the probable collaboration of the architect Solari. The architectural moulding consists of strongly projecting cornices, and rich plastic ornamentation of festoons, statues, and obelisks. In the aspect of its façade, this church is evidently closely allied to that described above, but it has one aisle only. The University Church of St. Anne follows next (illustration 61); it was built by Maderna, some time after 1594, on the model of St. Andrea della Valle in Rome, after a project of Peter Paul Olivieri. The structure strictly follows the Roman type, with the cupola over the crossing; the front, flanked by two towers, is richly moulded by columns, pilasters, and niches. The interior of the church is full of exuberant baroque decoration, with its stuccoes, figure paintings, and gildings. There is a row of chapels annexed to the nave, and organically connected with each other by means of a side-passage. The stucco-work and the wall-paintings closely associated with it, were done by the plasterer Balthasar Fontana, called to Poland in 1695, and the painter Charles Dankwart-Fontana, an Italian of Como, came to Cracow after staying for some time in the Court of the Prince-bishop Lichtenstein of Olmütz. Dankwart was a Swede by birth; he came to Cracow from Neisse in Silesia.
​Of all these churches, St. Anne's shows the characteristic features of the baroque style in their fullest and highest development—the highest, indeed, which they ever reached in Cracow architecture.
61. INTERIOR OF ST. ANNE'S CHURCH It is the most perfect example of the use that baroque style made of pictorial effects; it shows plastic art encroaching upon the sphere of painting, the very low reliefs evidently being intended ​to imitate pictures—and painting, on the other hand, attempting to reproduce sculptures. In all this, there is that chaotic confusion of artistic principles which makes baroque art appear as the degeneration and decay of Renascence.
Among the secular buildings of the period, the palace of the Wielopolski family—the present Town Hall—deserves special mention. It is a monumental structure in late Renascence style, somewhat like the Palazzo di Venezia at Rome, the interior
62. COURTYARD OF THE HOUSE, NO. 20, CENTRAL SQUARE. distinguished by beautiful vaultings and a staircase of noble forms. Here and there, in the streets of the city, we come upon interesting portals of houses, e.g., that of No. 20, John Street, showing a luxuriance of baroque forms; in others, there are spacious entrance halls, e.g., in No. 20, Central Square, where there is also the usual arcade court of Renascence architecture in the modified arrangement of this later period. This court was perhaps a work of the Flemish architect, Hendrick van Peene, ​who had been called to Cracow by the Zbaraski family in 1625. An interesting feature of Cracow's private houses in all these periods are the figured signs distinguishing each mansion quite as numbers do in modern times; on the house No. 20, Central Square, such a sign is still preserved.
Of Rococo Style fewer specimens are to be found at Cracow than of baroque. Such as deserve mention are: Bishop Grot's
63. COURTYARD OF THE HOUSE, NO. 17, CANONS' STREET. Chapel on the Wawel; in the town, the Church of the Piarist Fathers, sacred to the Tranfiguration of Christ; Count Stadnicki's palace in Castle Street, and several halls in private houses of Cracow which were decorated in rococo fashion.
The returning influence of classical form is noticeable in the house front of No. 20, Central Square; the principle of careful elaboration and symmetrical arrangement of architectonic details is consistently carried out, even to the balustrades of columns on the roofs, which form another characteristic feature of the ​recurring classical style. Empire style, with its harmonious correspondence of windows and pilasters to the triglyphs and metopes of the ornamental frieze, is exhibited in the palace, No. 11, John Street.
A great fire in 1850 destroyed whole quarters of the town, and almost entirely effaced its medieval character. The work of rebuilding was begun, but money was wanting for the erection of
64. COURTYARD OF THE HOUSE, NO. 21, CANONS' STREET. monumental structures. All that could be done was to save the most precious relics of medieval architecture from disappearing. At the head of the intelligent and industrious group of rebuilders there stood an architect named Charles Kremer (d. 1860); the task of restoring the Collegium Maius (now University Library, illustration 31), having fallen to his share, he carried it out most systematically. From the houses changed into ruins by the fire, he zealously collected such relics as had been preserved ​in the shape of door lintels, stone coats-of-arms, and foundation tablets, and transferred them all to the restored building. Bergmann of Vienna, and Felix Ksiezarski of Cracow, brought to an end the work of restoration begun by Kremer. The cloisters round the quadrangle of the building are full of the romantic glamour of medieval architecture, but there is also in their forms all the freshness and clearness of the Renascence. Felix
65. THE UNIVERSITY (COLLEGIUM NOVUM, 1884). Ksiezarski (1820-1884) is a typical Cracow architect of the nineteenth century. After studies at Munich and Metz he settled at Cracow, and did a great deal of architectural work, most of which, being in plain Romanesque or Gothic style, was, by its simplicity, adapted to the straitened financial means of the impoverished city. His magnum opus is the new University building (Collegium Novum (illustration 65), finished in 1884, which indeed deserves the highest praise on account of the prudent and practical ​arrangement of the lecture-rooms, the dignified and noble form of its outward aspect, and above all the exquisite beauty of the staircase.
An imitator of the famous Charles Frederick Schinkel, of Berlin, meets us in the person of Philip Pokutynski (1829-1879), Professor of Architecture in the Polytechnic Institute; he built the Academy of Sciences (in Slawkowska Street), a structure of grave and modest, yet monumental aspect, with classical features in its outward details. Another architect, also trained at Berlin, was Matthew Moraczewski. Thomas Prylinski (1847-1895), a man of great natural talents, is distinguished by excellent taste in the choice of architectonic forms and harmonious beauty of proportions. He lays particular stress on ornamental details, such as fine capitals, door framings, &c. His most important work is the reconstruction of Drapers' Hall (illustration 29), in which task he had the aid and advice of the great painter John Matejko. Both these men were ardent lovers of the past, and again and again gave expression to this love in their work. The decoration of Matejko's house was their joint production. Another noteworthy creation of Prylinski's was Helcel's Institute for Incurables, with its large front and graceful chapel, in which all the beauties of the Renascence revive.
Of the architects of the present generation we may mention (in alphabetical order): Ladislaus Ekielski, who, together with Thaddæus Stryjenski, built the orphan asylum founded by Duke Lubomirski in 1893; Sigismund Hendel, now superintending the restoration of the castle, and distinguished by many previous successes in restoring ancient buildings; Francis Maczynski, who built the Palace of Art, the new house of the Cracow Chamber of Commerce, and the concert hall of the Musical Society (this latter in a strikingly original fashion); Professor Slavomir Odrzywolski, who restored the cathedral; Theodor Talowski, an architect of great imaginative power and originality, to whom Cracow is indebted for many picturesque structures; Louis Woytyczko, particularly remarkable for his fine taste in matters of decoration; finally, John Zawiejski, who built the new theatre, with its beautiful, well-meditated interior.
​The Sculpture of the Renascence was also introduced into Poland by Italian artists; like architecture, it first flourished at the royal court. In 1501 King John Albert died, and his mother, Queen Elizabeth, a highly gifted lady, whom the humanists used to praise as both daughter of a king, wife of a king, and mother of kings, wishing to perpetuate her beloved, son's memory by a worthy monument, erected, at her own and Prince Sigismund's
66. OLD BUILDINGS IN THE SQUARE AT THE BACK OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH. expense, a sepulchre of red marble and sandstone in the Corpus Christi Chapel, which she had founded in the cathedral. In this work of plastic art two distinct styles appear combined. The marble figure reposing on the tomb is Gothic; the drapery, heavy and hard in its folds, and the face (portrayed from the original) clearly belong to the past epoch; the whole framing, on the other hand, with its Roman pilasters and simplicity of ornamentation, exhibits the influence of the Italian cinquecento. From the ​privy purse accounts of Prince Sigismund for 1502 we learn that the Prince kept in his court an Italian artist named Franciscus, and it may fairly be supposed that he built that sepulchral niche in Renascence style; he was probably a disciple of Ambrogio da Milano. With this monument of Renascence Art we enter on a new epoch, which, by the great number and extraordinary beauty of kings', magnates', bishops', and citizens' tombs produced in it, has become the golden age of Cracow sculpture. It extends over a long series of years, from 1501 to 1610. The primitive medieval form of a sarcophagus with a stone canopy gives way to the new model, with its slender columns, niches, and cornices, all harmoniously combined, and animated by highly imaginative ornamentation. The various colours of the material (marble, alabaster, sandstone, bronze) add new splendour to it, and give proof not merely of mastery in handling the chisel, but also of the thorough knowledge of architecture which these artists possessed. The Italians of Sigismund I's reign did not like to use the native white sandstone of Poland for figure sculpting; they preferred for that purpose the red marble of the Zips country (now in Northern Hungary, then a Polish territory), because this material allowed of detailed and exact treatment of contours and minute particulars. White freestone or limestone, on the other hand, proved to give wider play to the artist's imagination. Accordingly the Italian sculptors in Poland used both, taking red marble for the figure, and native stone for the architectural setting. In that period of the Wawel's history, when the Sigismund Chapel was added to the Cathedral, a large field was opened for the display of sculptors' talents. At the head of the sculptors then active doubtless stands Bartolomeo Berecci. To him probably must be ascribed the tomb of Bishop Tomicki (d. 1535). For the task of ornamenting the King's Chapel, Giovanni Cini, of Siena, was selected, a disciple of the famous Lorenzo di Mariano, called Marina. The grotesque character of his ornamentation had a deep influence on the further development of Cracow sculpture in the sixteenth century. About 1530 Gian Maria Padovano, called Musca, came to the royal court. He was medal-maker, sculptor, ​and architect in one—Il celebre Musca, che lasciava in marmo ed in bronzo opere pregevolissime—had already won a name at home by his decoration of St. Anthony's Church at Padua. From his hand also came the exquisite medallions of Sigismund and Bona Sforza. As an architect he produced several Cracow buildings described above, and many others in other places in Poland. The tombs of King Sigismund I (illustration 58), of Bishop Peter Gamrat (d. 1545), of Peter Boratynski (being the first piece of Renascence sculpture in freestone), the statues adorning the ciborium altar in St. Mary's Church, dame from his workshop. In the tomb of King Sigismund, besides Musca, John de Senis had a share, and the figure of Sigismund Augustus filling the raised niche was added by Santi Gucci. Thus the double tomb is not a uniform work of plastic art, but a composite creation of three different artists. Near the Sigismund Chapel we notice the tomb of Bishop John Konarski, of Cracow (d. 1525), another specimen of Italian art.
The numerous other masters of this period, known by name as having worked at Cracow, shall not be separately noticed here, because no direct connections can be established between each of them and any extant monuments. Of these we may yet mention the tombs of Bishop Samuel Maciejowski (d. 1550)—one of the most perfect works of the Renascence, pure and sublime in style—of Andrew Zebrzydowski (d. 1560)—rich in decorative ornament and of Valentine Dembinski, castellan of Cracow (d. 1584). All three are closely allied in structure. Another one, quite distinct from the rest, is the standing image of a Polish knight, Peter Kmita (d. 1553), Crown-Marshal and waywode of Cracow, the last scion of a noble race, praised in contemporary records as vir animi magni et consilii. Of the grand display of plastic ornament in the castle, particularly in the royal apartments, nothing has been preserved except the door and window frames mentioned before, and some of the heads carved in wood that adorned the meeting-hall of the Diet. These carvings, however, point to the Prankish school rather than to Italian models; but it is difficult to say, whether they ​were the work of the king's cabinetmaker, Erasmus Kuncz, or of another man. Among the Polish and German artists who then dwelt at Cracow besides the Italians, one only rises above the common level: John Michalowicz of Urzedów, architect and sculptor, called "the Polish Praxiteles" by his admiring contemporaries. He came to Cracow about 1565 and found himself
67. MONUMENT OF BISHOP ANDREW ZEBRZYDOWSKI, IN THE CATHEDRAL. in the middle of the Italians' activity, then at the height of its vigour. Of course, he was soon powerfully influenced by them, and his chisel got used to the forms they taught him to employ almost exclusively. Both tendencies, however, the German and the Italian one, find a representative in him, and are united in his works.
The cathedral contains two monumental productions of his: ​viz., the tombs of Bishop Philip Padniewski (d. 1572) and of Andrew Zebrzydowski (d. 1560), the first of these with an alabaster figure of the bishop; the other (illustration 67) probably, like the first, was done simultaneously with the decoration
68. MONUMENT OF KING STEPHEN BATHORY, IN THE CATHEDRAL. of the chapel founded by Zebrzydowski. To Michalowicz also a portal in Canons' Street is ascribed. Besides all these monuments, we must mention the colossal mausoleum of Lawrence Spytek Jordan, castellan of Cracow and of Sandec, whom Vasari mentions as grandissimo signore in Polonia e uomo di grande autoritate appresso al rè. At Caldore, near Verona, this Polish ​dignitary made the acquaintance of Bartholomeo Ridolphi, a plasterer, whom he induced to enter King Sigismund Augustus's service. In the monument to Jordan, however, it is not the hand of this Italian master that we trace; it rather shows some features characteristic of the German Renascence. Towards the end of the sixteenth century there appeared the sculptors' family of the Gucci. Santi Gucci, born at Florence, being a son of Giovanni della Camilla, who restored the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, had a good training at home. Of his works, we find on the Wawel the large monument of King Stephen Báthory (illustration 68). The decorative moulding which is of baroque intricacy, the scrolls and volutes, distinctly show that we are bordering on a new epoch. Sculpture is rapidly approaching a period of decline.
In the whole artistic movement, which thus centres in Wawel Cathedral, the citizens of Cracow take a warmly sympathizing part. The patricians of the town follow the example of kings and senators in building chapels of their own, founding altars, and erecting tombs. These of course are more modest in dimensions, but they equal the best in elegance of form; we even find such as are not surpassed by the others in grandeur and originality either. For proofs, it suffices to single out the Renascence monuments of Cellari and Montelupi (illustration 10), Lesniowolski, and others in St. Mary's Church, or the beautiful and interesting slabs of Cracow's Campo Santo in the cloisters of the Dominican Church.
Of the sepulchral brasses of the Renascence, the tomb of Prince-Cardinal Frederick Jagello, of 1510, deserves to be mentioned first (illustration 69); it has been described before. Here it only remains to point out the difference in style between the upper slab, with the engraved portrait of the Cardinal, which is Gothic, and the Renascence relief on the front side, representing the Cardinal as conducted by St. Stanislas to the throne of the Mother of God. Evidently, the plans were made by two different artists at Cracow, and jointly executed in Vischer's workshop at Nuremberg. One of the most beautiful ​monumental brasses is that of Sophia Boner (d. 1532), in St. Mary's Church; six years later that of her husband, Severin Boner, was added. The authors of both these monuments are unknown to us. But it is possible that the brasses were east in one of the Cracow workshops, which at that time displayed a vigorous activity. The brassfounders, who usually learned their art at Nuremberg, are still at work in the seventeenth century, although the older tradition is now represented by the artists of Danzig.
69. SEPULCHRAL MONUMENT TO CARDINAL FREDERICK JAGELLO IN WAWEL CATHEDRAL. In sculpture, there is, as indicated above, a change of style, accompanied by a preference for new material. Stone is supplanted by stucco, forms become more picturesque, movements unnaturally violent. Since the year 1619, when the royal residence was transferred to Warsaw, the art of Cracow, for want of the powerful support it used to find in the court, is falling into decay. About 1612 a sculptor of Breslau, named John Pfister, came to Poland, an excellent artist, whose works in alabaster ​became known in many parts of Poland; among other attributions, the mausoleum of the beatified Stanislas Kazmierczyk (1632) in Corpus Christi Church is supposed to be Pfister's work. Stucco is represented pre-eminently by the two brothers Balthazar and Francis Fontana, who decorated St. Anne's Church (illustration 61), and St. Hyacinth's Chapel in the Dominican
70. TOMB OF ST. HYACINTH, IN THE DOMINICAN CHURCH. (Balthazar Fontana.) Church (illustrations 70, 71). Claptrap and soulless splendour are the chief characteristics of this period; they are prominent in such monuments of the time as the sepulchres of King John Sobieski, King Michael Korybut, or Bishop Soltyk, on the Wawel. They give most eloquent proof of the decay of art. During the last span of Poland's independence in the eighteenth century Cracow is entirely devoid of artistic genius, Warsaw having become a centre of attraction through the last king's liberality and taste. ​The short stay of the great Dane Thorwaldsen, in 1820, was of some importance for Cracow. The master, who stood rapt in admiration at the sight of the magnificent works of art, which Cracow's churches revealed to him, contributed not a
71. VAULT OF ST. HYACINTH'S CHAPEL IN THE DOMINICAN CHURCH. (Balthazar Fontana.) little to the awakening of some interest in the accumulated treasures of ages. His beautiful statue of Vladimir Potocki in Carrara marble, and a figure of Christ, both in the cathedral, remained as monuments of his relations to Cracow (illustration 72). ​The Florentine artists, Tadolini and Ricci, supplied some sculptures without ever having visited Cracow. The short Neo-Gothic period is represented by two Italians, Francesco Land, architect, and Paolo Filippi, sculptor; their drawingroom-like decoration of Queen Sophia's Chapel in the cathedral has been removed in the course of the present restoration. A
72. STATUE OF COUNT VLADIMIR POTOCKI IN WAWEL CATHEDRAL, BY THORWALDSEN. revival of Cracow sculpture was first started by Charles Ceptowski, a disciple of Thorwaldsen. He educated several artists of the younger generation, such as the brilliantly gifted Leon Szubert, who unfortunately died early, the excellent stone-cutters, Edward and Sigismund Stehlik, and the sculptor Rogozinski. From the Cracow workshop of Valerian Gadomski, a pupil of Filippi, there came several works of high artistic value, which now adorn public places and buildings. ​All these were teachers in the Cracow School of Arts; so was Marcel Guyski (d. 1893); he produced busts chiefly, which give proof of high talent, and indeed must be included among the best works of their kind, on account of both excellent characterization and technical perfection. During the first period of his activity he was under the predominant influence of Luigi Amici, but later on, after a prolonged stay at Paris, which brought him into contact with French art, he adhered to French models. His pupils, Antonia Rozniatowska, Tola Certowicz, and Thaddæus Blotnicki, inherited some of the excellences of their master's talent. Of Gadomski's pupils, Anthony Pleszowski, who unfortunately died young, was doubtless the most highly gifted one. His bronze figure, entitled Mourning (in the National Museum), although repeating a motive of Michel Angelo in a Michelangelesque manner, yet shows individual depth of feeling, beauty of conception, and extraordinary harmony of lines. Another pupil of Gadomski's, Alfred Daun, produced the decorative groups standing in the parks that encircle the city.
In the National Museum are found some fine bronzes by Pius Welonski; his Gladiator (illustration 73), and Sclavus saltans are marked as works of a higher order, by the exquisite beauty of outline and correctness of form. His also is a bronze statue of Bojan (a legendary Slavonic hero) in the city parks. Among others, the groups and statuettes contributed by Peter Wojtowicz to the National Museum, are distinguished by academic precision and exactitude of work. In the quadrangle of the University Library building, and in front of the new theatre we see two sculptures of Cyprian Godebski, who made a name in France, and accordingly followed French tendencies in art: one of these is a statue of Copernicus, the famous astronomer, in the guise of a Cracow undergraduate; the other, a bust of Alexander Fredro, the Polish Moliere. Another sculptor addicted to French modernism, Wenceslaus Szymanowski, established his studio at Cracow in 1906; his monument of the painter, Arthur Grottger, in the city parks, ​ 73. THE GLADIATOR, BY P. WELONSKI. (National Museum.) ​is an eminent proof of thorough mastery of form and extraordinary talent. There is marked naturalism in his highly expressive handling of the subject, combined, however, with a rich and fervid imagination (illustration 74).
In the Cracow School of Art, which has been raised to the rank of an Academy, sculpture is taught by another artist of high talent, and repeatedly distinguished by honours abroad:
74. MONUMENT OF ARTHUR GROTTGER. (W. Szymanowski.) Professor Constantine Laszczka. His portraits, busts, and masks are marked by depth of imaginative conception, keenness of observation, and variety of individual expression.
The prevalence of typical features as a source of effect, noticeable in the sculptures of Professor Laszczka, is fully developed in those of his pupil John Szczepkowski, who, not satisfied with merely a typical face, gives a harmoniously typical cast to whole figures and even groups.
​A great stir in Cracow sculpture was occasioned by the competition for a monument to Poland's greatest poet, Mickiewicz, in 1880-1890: this gave an opportunity for arising into public notice to some young talents previously hidden in obscurity. The model which connoisseurs reputed best, that of Anthony Kurzawa (representing Mickiewicz waking to life the winged Genius of Poetry) did not obtain the first prize; it was too purely intellectual, too much devoid of glaring outward symbols to suit the taste of the general public: this turned rather to
75. MONUMENT OF QUEEN HEDWIG IN WAWEL CATHEDRAL. (A. Madeyski.) the project of Thaddæus Rygier, which accordingly carried the day. His monument, in deference to literary considerations with which we are not concerned, was put in a place decidedly ill-chosen from the aesthetic point of view, and thus Central Square was disfigured rather than adorned. Rygier's monument is of very unequal artistic merit; at all events, it is the production of an intelligent artist, anxious to preserve harmony of proportions in the groups, to which he has given a graceful if somewhat lifeless expression.
​The sculptures in the Cathedral have lately received new additions in the shape of two important monuments of modern Polish art, both of them works of Anthony Madeyski, a disciple of Gadomski, living in Rome. One of these is the monument of Queen Hedwig (illustration 75). On a sarcophagus
75. MONUMENT OF KING LAUISLAUS III. (D. 1444). (A. Madeyski.) of yellow marble there reposes the majestic figure of the sleeping Queen, in white Carrara marble, with hands folded in prayer. The work, a gift of Count Lanckoronski, is distinguished by force and precision of contours, a thorough knowledge of anatomy, and easy-flowing drapery. A similar excellence of form, though not of colour effect, marks the monument (standing in the nave) of King Ladisiaus III., who ​lost his young life on the battlefield of Varna (1444) in heroic fight against the Mussulmans for the sake of Christendom. As
77. MONUMENT OF KING LADISLAUS JAGELLO. (A. Wiwulski.) a contrast to the predominance of white in the colour of the other monument, we see here a parti-coloured tomb of rosso antico, schio, and verde antico: the figure of the Christian ​Knight, reposing on it in full armour and with the crown on his head, is of bronze.
In 1910, when the whole nation sent representatives to Cracow to commemorate the 500th anniversary of King Jagello's victory over the German "Knights of the Cross," Paderewski, the pianist of world-wide fame, presented to the town a monumental equestrian statue of the King, on a solid granite base, surrounded by four groups of figures representing moments of the fight. The whole, a powerful piece of work by a young sculptor named Wiwulski, is a proud memorial indeed of a great event in Poland's history; it adorns the square in front of the College of Art (illustration 77).
For Painting, the Renascence also meant the dawning of a new day. This is manifested by the disappearance of the typical gold background with Gothic tracery, which is replaced by some rudiments of landscape. A very strong current of new ideas distinctly permeates the painters' guild of Cracow in 1490. It is decreed to reform the ordinances of the guilds by new statutes. Immigration of painters from Nuremberg, Silesia, Saxony, Moravia, and Bohemia becomes more frequent; all these foreigners infuse new life into Cracow painting. It is not improbable that even the greatest master of German Renascence painting, Albrecht Dürer, passed through Cracow on his wanderings. Among others, there came Joachim Libnan of Dresden; he was in close relations with the Augustine Order, which the Lanckoronski family used to endow with their foundations. Thus it is highly probable that the interesting folding-altar of St. John the Almoner, of 1504, came from his workshop (illustration 78). The characteristic figures of this triptych, the mise-en-scène of the whole episode, the bright colouring, the Renascence-like ornaments on the gold background, all show this to be the first real Renascence painting at Cracow. Making allowance for medieval realism of manner and traditional means of expression, as shown, e.g., in the folds of drapery or in the difference of proportion between the Saint's figure and those of the common men, we still clearly see new principles of art asserting themselves, chiefly those that were ​ 78. TRIPTYCH, WITH SCENES FROM THE LEGEND OF ST. JOHN THE ALMONER. (Augustines' Church.) ​propagated in Germany then by the Venetian painter Jacopo dei Barbari. Libnan, who was active at Cracow from 1494 to 1522, was probably, like his namesake in the world of letters, a Silesian. He was honoured by the title of Court Painter. In the decoration of the new Castle on the Wawel, then being built, two painters were chiefly employed, one Blasius, who came in 1526, and Hans Dürer, a brother of the famous Albrecht. A little picture of St. Jerome in the National Museum, insignificant as a work of art, marks the year 1526 as the probable date of Dürer's coming to stay at Cracow. In 1529, at the very latest, he entered the king's service and painted the walls of the royal apartments on the Wawel. The excellent portrait, in Renascence style, of Bishop Peter Tomicki, in the cloisters of the Franciscan Church has been ascribed to Dürer (illustration 79). From the king's Privy Purse Accounts of 1538 we learn that Dürer also furnished a painted model of the silver altar in Sigismund Chapel; but the actual pictures (illustration 92), which represent the story of Christ's Passion, are of higher artistic value than Dürer's authenticated works. In the treatment of his subject the painter follows, it is true, the so-called "Little Passion" of Albrecht Dürer, which of course his brother would have done; but in their workmanship, especially as regards design, the pictures are more like those of Strasburg masters, such as Hans Baldung Grien, whose relations to Cracow are testified by some of his woodcuts. Hans Dürer died at Cracow in 1538, in his own house in Castle Street.
About 1503 there appear in Cracow books, printed by Hochfeder, Haller, Ungler, and Viëtor, numerous woodcuts, partly imported from Germany, partly produced at Cracow. Some of them are from the hand of one Hans Czymerman (Carpenter), who came from Iglau in Moravia; and this origin of his is characteristically manifested in his artistic remains. He is particularly remarkable for many-sided versatility. From 1496 to 1501 he worked as painter and wood-carver at Breslau, afterwards at Cracow, where he remained till the end of his life (1532). His first greater works were the miniatures illuminating a codex in the possession of Erasmus Ciolek, Bishop of Plock. ​Here he illustrated Polish Church Life (illustration 20). Another series of scenes from common middle-class life, particularly from
79. PETER TOMICKI, BISHOP OF CRACOW, 1524-1535. (Hans Dürer (?).) that of Cracow's artizans and traders, is the subject of Czymerman's miniatures in the famous codex of Balthazar Behem, unique ​of its kind. These are characterized by a touch of satire, like that pervading the woodcuts in Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, or the engravings of Martin Schongauer (illustration 12). The miniatures, unequal in value as they are, contain much living truth and give us a faithful image of the Cracow citizens' life and occupations. A prayer-book of Queen Bona Sforza, of 1526
80. HOLY TRINITY. (National Museum.) (now at Oxford), and a richly illuminated missal with a portrait of King Sigismund I, were probably likewise painted by Czymerman. Another work of his is an interesting oil-painting of the Holy Trinity in the National Museum (illustration 80). In this he repeats motives both of Wohlgemut and of Diirer, and it is particularly remarkable that the features of God the Father are imitated from those of Albrecht Dürer himself, as the painter ​found them on a portrait of the German master, painted before 1500 (now unknown). It is possible that such a portrait was in the possession of the Haller family at Cracow, who were related to Dürer. The Franconian painter Michael Lencz, or Lantz, of Kitzingen, became a citizen of Cracow in 1507, and died there in 1540. A picture of his, the Conversion of Paul, 1522, to be seen in St. Mary's Church, is marked by all the characteristics of the Nuremberg School.
In the royal court, the influence of Renascence ideas produced an atmosphere of individualism, of adoration for great minds,, firing the soul of the nation and lifting it up to their own height. Such a disposition was naturally favourable to portrait painting. Accordingly, we possess, from this time, a great many likenesses, to be found on the Wawel, in the cloisters of the Franciscan Church, and in the Museums. Miniature painting was a favourite pursuit both with monks and laity. Thus, a Vicar at the cathedral, Peter Postawa of Proszowice, illuminated the vellum codices of the Cathedral Library. A Cistercian named Stanislas did the same for the Convent Annals of Mogila, which he adorned with a series of portraits of the Abbots. Victorinus, a Dominican, and others illustrated the records of their several convents by similar works of art. In 1514, Hans Suess of Culmbach, a friend of Dürer, came to Cracow and displayed, within a short time, a brilliant activity which had a powerful influence on Cracow painting. The warm colours he used, and the new types he introduced, remained for a long time models for imitation. Suess, whom Boner had called to Cracow, produced and left here some of his finest works, which are also among the most characteristic productions of Dürer's school. In St. Mary's Church we possess a cycle of eight pictures from his hand representing the martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, and one from a cycle devoted to St. John the Evangelist; five others are in St. Florian's Church. The Pauline Convent, the Czartoryski Museum, and the collections of Count Potocki possess one picture each from Suess's hand. Two most significant innovations were introduced by him as new elements into​Cracow art: first, he pointed to the study of nature as a fountain of youth, and, in fact, the fundamental condition of real artists' work; secondly, as regards technicalities, he first taught Cracow painters an imaginative and intelligent treatment of landscape. Accordingly, we notice in subsequent pictures by Cracow artists, not only imitation of his workmanship, but even repetition of his types, e.g., in the picture of St. John the Evangelist in St. Catherine's Church, or in an Assumption of Mary (in the Czartoryski Museum), which plainly repeat motives of Culmbach's from such pictures as the above-mentioned Death of St. Catherine.
Franconian influence is traceable in such works of Cracow painters as, e.g. the Madonna in St. Nicholas's Church of 1515-1520. Touches of local character sometimes appear in the shape of a Slavonic type of face, or a picturesque background of Cracow landscape; also in the national costume, which there is opportunity for exhibiting in scenes like the martyrdom of St. Stanislas.
Nuremberg influence is by no means the only one acting on Cracow painting; almost simultaneously with it, the Flemish school conies into prominence. To this there belong: a wall painting in the Carmelites' Church, and a picture signed with the monogram G., of date 1517, which, from the ancient church of St. Michael on the Wawel, has been transferred to the collections of Prince Czartoryski.
It is somewhat strange that in the great Renascence movement, inaugurated and guided in architecture and sculpture by Italian artists, painting should have fallen entirely within the sphere of German influence only. Miniature painting only shows Italian forms, the codices being partly of Italian origin, partly illuminated in Poland after Italian models. The reign of King Stephen Bathory is marked by a great rise of portrait and of battle painting. The Breslau portrait-painter, Martin Koebner or Kober, who was court painter to the king, made a portrait of the king in 1583 (now in the church of the Missionary Fathers); it is correct in design and vigorous in colours (illustration 81).
​With the accession of King Sigismund III, painter, goldsmith, turner, musician, and alchemist, in short, a dilettante in all branches of art, the domination of baroque style sets in. Being a warm friend and favourer of art, he gave equal protection to
81. KING STEPHEN BÁTHORY. (Martin Koebner.) many different tendencies: Italian colourists, Dutch and German masters, all had his support. Among the artists at Sigismund's Court, we find the Venetian master Thomas Dollabella, in company with the Northern ones, Danckerts de Ry and Peter ​Gottlander (possibly identical with Peter Soutman, a pupil of Rubens), the Germans, Jacob Troschel of Nuremberg and Hans Lange, sometime in the Emperor's service, and a Pole, John Szwankowski. The education the king had had in youth, could not but definitely direct his sympathy to the artists of the North; thus it is quite natural that, in the end, we find a Dutchman, Paul Tomturn, called Thurn for short, in the King's employment, and that a countryman of his, Jacob Mertensy, found plenty of work to do at Cracow during his stay from 1598 to 1606. In the town of Wisnicz, not far from Cracow, there stayed, about 1539, another Low-Country man, Matthew Ingermann, a Belgian.
Of seventeenth-century Polish artists, John Ziarnko, known abroad under the name of J. A. Grano or Le Grain (which is a translation of his Polish name), attained high fame both as painter and engraver, He had originally learned the goldsmith's art and painting at Cracow. In 1598 he went to Paris and there continued his work. Thomas Dollabella, mentioned above, was born in 1570 at Belluno in Venetia, and died at Cracow in 1650, after having served three Polish Kings, viz., Sigismund III, Ladislaus IV, and John Casimir (all of the Vasa dynasty). He is among the most productive artists of his period. His most characteristic feature inherited,—in fact, from his master, Aliense—was a certain decorative grandeur, united with a rather superficial treatment of the canvas. He cared little for nature, but aspired to excellence in brilliant compositions which he threw off with magnificent ease. He found many pupils and imitators; the most eminent among them is Zacharias Zwonowski, who died young in 1639, and whose pictures are to be found in St. Catherine's Church. Of the Cracow paintings of this period, a picture of St. Sebastian in the convent of the Camaldulenses at Bielany (on the Vistula near Cracow), with subtle modelling, silvery tones of colour, beautiful landscape and fine figures of Polish knights, may be called the best. We know nothing of the works of a family of painters in the seventeenth century (John, Martin, and Adalbert Proszkowski), and of one Luke Porebowicz (d. 1637) except that ​they are highly praised by their contemporaries. An imitator of Rubens meets us in the person of the Bernardine Friar, Francis Leksycki (d. 1668), whose paintings are preserved in the church of his convent. Another Cracow painter of the period, John Alexander Tricius, who was a valiant soldier too, learned his art from Poussin in Paris and Jacob Jordaens in Antwerp; on returning home, he entered the royal service, and was court painter to Michael Korybut, John Sobieski, and Augustus II successively (1653-1692). The victory of King John Sobieski over the Turks at Chocini in 1673, he commemorated by a votive picture in St. Peter's Church.
The finest portrait of the seventeenth century is doubtless that of Bishop Trzebicki in the Franciscan Church, painted by Daniel Frecherus in 1664.—The work of the Cracow artist, Bogdan (Polish for Theodor) Lubieniecki (1653-1729) essentially belongs to the history of German art. The baroque church of St. Anne contains, as mentioned above, the paintings of a Swede, Charles Dankwart, besides those of two Italians, Innocentio Monti and Paul Pagani, and of a Polish nobleman, Eleutherius Siemiginowski, who was obliged to sign his pictures Eleuther only, in order not to incur the censure of the nobility for following such a mean, plebeian vocation, as that of painter was even then reputed to be. The most eminent representative of religious painting at Cracow in the eighteenth century was Simon Czechowicz (1689-1775). In his moral life a perfect Fra Angelico, in art a follower of Carlo Maratta, he was also the first Pole who founded a public school of painting at Warsaw. His pictures, to be found in the National Museum, in the Cracow High School of Art, in St. Anne's Church, &c., prove him to have been a man of no very strong individual powers, an eclectic, devoid of original conceptions, who devoutly followed masters and models such as Raffael, Rubens, Maratta, Guido Reni, Michel Angelo; his most original production is the Vision of St. John of Kenty, in the church of St. Florian. Besides him there is Thaddasus Konicz or Kunze (d. 1758), born at Cracow, who made a careful study of nature, showed more of original depth of conception, ​and in spite of the occasional superficiality of treatment, attained a high level of art, witness his pictures in the Cathedral and in the church of the Missionary Fathers, in the quarter called Stradom. The year 1745 is remarkable for an important event in the evolution of plastic art at Cracow: for in this year the Rector of the University, by a decree, admitted the painters of Cracow as followers of a liberal profession, to the freedom of the University. The painters forthwith entered their names on the books of the University; this meant an important change in their social position.
Under the reign of Poland's last king, Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, a weak monarch, but a great favourer of the arts, the Court of Warsaw became a centre of refined culture. The most eminent foreign artists entered the king's service and exercised a beneficial influence on the education of Polish adepts. The king formed the design of a series of pictures illustrating Polish history. This idea had a deep suggestive influence on artists' minds all over the country. Thus there appeared at Cracow, Michael Stachowicz, an indifferent artist, but valuable to us for his observation of contemporary events of the life that rolled its tide through the squares, streets, and churches of Cracow; all he saw there he registered faithfully in his drawings and pictures, and thus became a truly representative, national painter.—Abbé Hugo Kollataj, who reorganized Poland's educational system, provided for the teaching of design by appointing for this purpose one Dominic Estreicher, a Moravian painter. At the same time, the art of miniature painting on ivory became fashionable; at Cracow, it was illustrated by the names of the eminent artists Kopf (d. 1832), Kosinski (d. 1821), Sonntag (d. 1834), and Cercha (d. 1820). The finest collection of ivory miniatures is to be found in the museum of Prince Czartoryski. This collection must also be mentioned here as extremely rich in pictures of great foreign masters. We find there the portraits of Cecilia Galerani by Lionardo da Vinci, of Jacob Meyer, burgomaster of Basle, by Hans Holbein, jun., of Pescara and of Charles V by Titian, of Lady Pembroke by Van Dyck, of Anne de Retz ​(presumably, at least) by Jean Clouet, of a Prince of Urbino by Raphael; there are, besides, pictures of Carlo Crivelli, Gossaert,
82. CECILIA GALERANI. (In the Czartoryski Museum.) (Lionardo da Vinci.) (called Mabuse), Roger van der Weyden, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Adrian van der Velde, Teniers, and many others (cf. illustrations 82-85).
​In 1818 a school of painting was created in the University; its first teachers, Peszka (d. 1831), and Brodowski (d. 1853), were insignificant as artists, and did not contribute much to the
83. THE PRINCE OF URBINO. (In the Czartoryski Museum.) (Raphael.) development of art. Only in 1835 there came from Rome a pupil of Vincentio Camucci, named Adalbert Stattler-Stanski (1800-1882), who reorganized the school by his activity as ​ 84. LADY PEMBROKE. (In the Czartoryski Museum.) (Van Dyck.) ​teacher and theoretician. Himself a follower of Overbeck—as his picture of the Maccabees proves, which won the prize at Paris in 1841—he succeeded in inspiring his pupils with a general devotion to great aims and noble models, and in stirring up their imagination and the desire for perfection. The efficiency of his teaching is proved by the names of his pupils, such as Luszczkiewicz, Grabowski, Gryglewski, Kotsis, Leopolski, Grottger, and Matejko. His colleagues in teaching were J. Glowacki, famous for his landscapes, a disciple of Gauermann and Steinfeld, then his
85. THE STORM. (In the Czartoryski Museum.) (Rembrandt.) successor and imitator, A. Plonczynski, and J. Bizanski, a follower of the Vienna School.
There appear sometimes, in the history of art, powerful individualities, who, without any particular predecessors or followers, attain a great height, and leave us in amazement at their solitary grandeur. Such a God-gifted artist was Peter Michalowski (born at Cracow in 1800, d. 1855), who, with an eagle-like keenness of mind, clearly perceived his proper tasks and went to their execution with impulsive, spontaneous ​inspiration. He learned painting in the school of Charlet at Paris, where also his best works are to be found; he generally painted in water-colours; the subjects of his incomparable creations are chiefly animal life and military scenes, being the two elements which he had become familiar with from his earliest childhood; the nation's agricultural pursuits in peace, and its heroic struggles for independence in war—he had witnessed the insurrection of 1831—were the two fountains of his
86. A STUD. (Julius Kossak.) inspiration. In this, as in the general character of his art, he is most closely followed by Julius Kossak (1824-1899), who, by his talent for illustration, his productive vigour and everyouthful enthusiasm, became the painter of Polish national life in its most characteristic aspects (illustration 86). This spirited and original painter, whose talent is most deeply rooted in the native soil, had a potent influence on the younger generation of artists, men like Grottger, Brandt, Gierymski, Falat, ​Chelmonski. Henry Rodakowski (1823-1894), an eminent portrait-painter, who mostly lived abroad, obtained the first-class gold medal at Paris in 1852 for his portrait of General Dembinski (a leading figure both in the Polish national war of 1831, and in the Hungarian insurrection of 1849); besides the excellence of harmonious and subtle colouring, he had an effective way of bringing out the psychological expression of a face. After Ladislaus Luszczkiewicz, known both as painter and historian of art, the Mastership of the Cracow School of Arts passed into the hands of the illustrious John matejko(1838-1893), one of the greatest historical painters of modern, Europe. In the Paris Salon of 1865 he first exhibited a picture called The Sermon of Peter Skarga, which won for him the gold medal. In this his very first work the character of his genius is already made manifest; it is the pathetic proemium to the great historical epic of his nation's political existence, which he has left to posterity in the grand series of his paintings. Historiosopher and psychologist, he shows a truly Shakespearian power in plastically embodying the chief moments in the development of Polish civilization, such as the final union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569; the defeat of the German Knights of the Cross (the rising monarchy's most dangerous enemy) in 1410; the homage done by the Duke of Prussia to the King of Poland in the market-place at Cracow in 1525 (illustration 87), the surrender of the Austrian Pretender, Archduke Maximilian, to the Polish army under Zamoyski in 1588; the intrepid vindication of Poland's parliamentary freedom by Thaddaeus Reytan on the Russian ambassador's forcing from the Diet a sanction of the first division of Poland in 1773 (Kunst-historisches Hof-Museum, Vienna); the proclamation of a Constitution based on social equality and abolishing serfdom, on May ​ 87. HOMAGE OF ALBERT, DUKE OF PRUSSIA, TO THE KING OF POLAND, 1525. (Jan Matejko.) ​3, 1791; the victory of Kosciuszko's peasant army over the Russians at Raclawice, April 4, 1794 (being the first great triumph of modern Polish democracy). The deeply religious cast of Matejko's mind, in its sublime, almost medieval simplicity is manifested in his picture of Joan of Arc's triumphant entry into Rheims, and in his last, unfinished work, representing the Vows of King John Casimir Vasa, by which, having almost miraculously rescued his kingdom from the deluge of Swedish invasion, the king solemnly devoted himself and his people to the everlasting protection and patronage of the Queen of Heaven (1656). Most of these pictures of Matejko's—all of them canvasses of huge dimensions—are to be seen in the National Museum at Cracow.
But other domains of his art, outside great historical composition, were not foreign either to the genius of Matejko. Born and educated at Cracow, where also he spent the whole of his life, he became par excellence the painter of this town. There was certainly nobody who ever had a more thorough knowledge of the city's monuments, its customs, and its past. This knowledge of, and faithful love for his mother-city give an essentially local character to his pictures. He never underwent the influence of any foreign school, did not know even the great picture galleries abroad; yet we catch a tone in his work which resembles something in Rubens, in Buonarotti, and in the later Spanish Masters. It is most interesting and characteristic that, in his powerful grasp of the subjects, the same passionate vitality is manifested which we have noticed in the old Vitus Stoss, the great naturalist of late Gothicism. In spite, however, of these slight resemblances he remains one of the most distinct and powerful individualities in the history of painting. To his masterpieces Polish art is indebted for the recognition of its existence and importance in the field of international competition.
Besides historical painting, he also excelled in portraits, which are among the most perfect of their kind; so are the wall-paintings in St. Mary's Church, the splendid outcome of his penetrating, intuitive knowledge of medieval art. In the history ​of the Cracow School of Arts his headmastership marks a period of brilliant revival. Besides his own personal influence, he was
88. PORTRAIT OF COUNT STANISLAS TARNOWSKI, RECTOR OF CRACOW UNIVERSITY, 1900. (Jan Matejko.) successfully active in securing new teachers for it; such were Alexander Gryglewski, Leopold Loefler, Szynalewski, Cynk, and Unierzyski.
​The importance of this school for the development of art at Cracow is equalled, if not surpassed, by the Society of Lovers of Art founded in 1854 as a new centre for spreading a taste for fine arts among the largest circles of the population. From this moment Cracow became, and has been ever since, a metropolis of Polish art, where all artists make a
89. ON THE EVE OF WAR. (From the cycle "Lithuania.") (Arthur Grottger.) point of spending some shorter or longer time, and where each of them gets a fair opportunity for free display of his individual talents. We find among them the portraitist Grabowski (d. 1886) and Alexander Kotsis (d. 1877), whose landscapes from the Carpathian Mountains, and episodes from rural life, show Nature painted in her truth, but looked at from a poetical, idealizing point of view. Like Millet, though not with equal mastery, ​he tells in his paintings the story of the village, of the peasants' weal and woe. Scenes from Cracow street life, painted in a similar spirit, are the favourite subject of Hippolytus Lipinski (d. 1884). At the same time with Kotsis, Witold Pruszkowski (d. 1896) turned to naturalism, preserving, however, a tendency for poetical idealisation. In Pruszkowski's pictures we frequently meet with psychological motives evidently repeated from the works of Arthur Grottger, who, in three famous series of drawings, entitled Lithuania, Poland, and War, had immortalized the terrible tragedy of the disastrous national insurrection in 1863 (illustration 89). Pruszkowski, who studied with assiduous devotion the effects of colours, reminds us by his refined way of harmonizing them, of his great affinity in the world of sounds—Chopin. He was our first "impressionist," like Manet in France. No more than the names can here be mentioned of the genre painters, Kozakiewicz, Koniuszko, M. Gottlieb; the landscape painters, Benedyktowicz, R. Kochanowski, A. Mroczkowski, A. Gramatyka; the battle painters, Z. Ajdukiewicz, W. Kossak, A. Piotrowski; the portraitists, K. Pochwalski, J. M. Krzesz, Machniewicz, Bryll, &c.; and the most popular illustrators, P. Stachiewicz and St. Tondos.
Besides the Cracow artists above mentioned, we find in the National Museum many works of others who did not live in Cracow at all, or only stayed here for a short time, but who have taken a high place in the history of Polish painting. Thus there is Henry Siemiradzki, a painter of antique life, a sort of Polish Alma Tadema, whose pictures are full of the golden sun and blue seas of the classic South. His curtain for Cracow Theatre (illustration 90), showing the spirits of Comedy to the right, Tragedy on the left, and Drama, uniting the genius of Comedy and Tragedy, in the middle, with Burlesque and Satire at its feet, is a perfect masterpiece of decorative symbolism. The National Museum has his Torches of Nero (burning of Christians), a picture of world-wide fame. In the same collection we find some works of Leopolski (d. 1892), a master of chiaroscuro; then there is one of Poland's best landscape painters, ​Joseph Chelmonski, who is particularly remarkable for his masterly rendering of life in motion. The brothers Max and Alexander Gierymski, both masters of colour, the plein-air painters St. Witkiewicz (who is also an eminent critic), Wl. Tetmajer, an excellent painter of village life, married to a peasant's daughter at Bronowice, near Cracow, Zelechowski, and others, can only be mentioned here. About the middle of the nineteenth century a reaction against positivism set in,
90. CURTAIN OF CRACOW THEATRE. (Henryk Siemiradzki.) which, besides a new current in literature, produced new tendencies in painting too. The works of Arnold Boecklin, Puvis de Chavannes, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, all of them expressing universal emotions of the human mind, and playing on the tenderest chords of the nation's heart, succeeded in securing a recognized position for the new forms and ideas.
In 1895 Julian Falat, the painter of Northern landscape, of vast plains of snow glittering in the sun, and of impenetrable forest ​thickets, was appointed headmaster of the Cracow Academy of Arts. He had come from the older Cracow School, but later on he followed the latter-day tendencies in art, and became the leader of modern Polish impressionism. His appointment to the headmastership made it possible for him to engage new teachers, and thus by degrees to change the old School of Arts into a real Academy. His colleague there, Leon Wyczolkowski, who likewise treads the new paths, is chiefly distinguished by his symbolic pictures, subtly rendering various moods of mind, and by his portraits, which, by the excellent modelling of the bodies, give proof of his talent for observation of forms and colours in Jiving shapes. The mystical motive of death, which we meet very often in Wyczolkowski's pictures, faces us again, but intensified to a high degree in the works of the poet and painter, Stanislas wyspianski(d. 1907). With great originality and a spontaneous power sometimes approaching brutality, he combines archaic, nay even medieval, forms and designs. His symbolic conceptions—like most of his poetry—show him to be deeply influenced by the great romantic poet Slowacki (d. 1849), who, through the stages of Byronic melancholy and satire, Shakespearian tragi-comedy, and Calderonian religion, had passed, toward the end of his life, into a sort of patriotic mysticism, chiefly fostered by one Andrew Towianski, the founder of a sect temporarily including each of the greatest Polish poets (Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasinski), and called "Messianism," because proclaiming Poland "the Messiah of nations." With Wyspianski's poetry we are not directly concerned here; it follows Slowacki's in inspiration and diction—though distinctly protesting in one of the plays, "Deliverance," against the too exclusive domination of the nation's mind and actions by the ideals of the romantic poets, and attempting to form new elements of poetic style from the speech and song of the Polish peasants. Among Wyspianski's paintings, the stained windows in the Franciscan Church, with their gorgeous symbolism of colours and forms, alternating between the cold greenish paleness and stiffness of ascetic resignation and the wildly-curling ​red flames of ecstatic love of God, deserve mention as a splendid manifestation of his intuitive understanding of medieval religious mysticism (aided by suggestions from Slowacki's poetry in his Calderonian period); so do his projects for windows in Wawel Cathedral, representing, with a grand sweep of outline, one, the figure of King Casimir the Great as discovered in his tomb, terrible in the majesty of death; the other, that of Henry the Pious as he fell fighting against the Mongolian invaders on Lignica field in 1246.
There can hardly be a greater contrast than that which prevails between the medieval visions of Wyspianski and the sunny, brightly smiling impressionist world of Professor Axentowicz's art; his female figures, dexterously outlined on canvas or paper, are so many fleeting types of the Eternal-Feminine in its capricious grace. Professor Stanislawski (d. 1908) was chiefly remarkable for bits of Polish rural scenery with all the peculiar spirit of the landscape in them, and later on for glaring patches of glorious Italian sun, sea, and shore. Joseph Mehofer, who won the gold medal at Paris in 1900, is equally excellent in realistic portraits and in magnificent cartoons for wall and window paintings, which show depth of thought united with wonderful technical skill, e.g., his plans for the interior decoration of the Cathedral Treasury when restored. A society called Sztuka (Art), which was founded in 1896, unites a group of leading artists who profess the modern principles of art, for the purpose of common action, chiefly by means of exhibitions. The most eminent among them are the portraitists Olga Boznanska, Joseph Czajkowski, Edward Trojanowski, Adalbert Weiss, Charles Tichy, and several of the above-mentioned professors in the Academy.
Finally, there remains to be mentioned, among the painters living at Cracow, Professor Hyacinth Malczewski, who occupies a quite separate and distinct position. It is not merely his masterful correctness of design, his familiarity with the most recent tendencies in art, and his great susceptibility that deserve high praise; but above all this, his pictures, by the extraordinary ​creative power of his mind, become a series of grand poems reflecting the very soul of the nation in fantastic allegorical symbols of its sufferings and meditations. It is either the whole people's mind and feelings he expresses in strange and uncouth shapes, or, at other times, the solitary struggles of a poor Polish artist with distress and 'dejection, being the fatal effects of the
91. CHRIST TEMPTED BY SATAN. (H. Malczewski.) hard conditions, both material and moral, which the oppressed nation is constantly labouring under. Like Dante, he makes us pass under his guidance through the long Inferno of the Polish nation's political martyrdom. Hope and despair, life and death, valiant strife and passive fortitude, combine to produce a majestic "Soul's Tragedy," striking cruel claws of bitter reality into the ​spectator's heart and brain. His artistic talent is distinguished by a perfectly faultless moulding of forms. All his conceptions, however fascinating in their own allegorical intricacy, receive a separate and additional charm from being set in a most elaborate and thoroughly realistic background of landscape, which reminds one of the masterpieces of Japanese art. His immense variety of forms, always original, always fresh and brilliant, cannot fail to impress us with sincere admiration for the inventive genius of the artist (illustration 91).
Thus having finished our sketch of modern Polish painting as developed within the walls of Cracow, we turn to the history of Applied Art in the modern era. Here again, the Renascence proved a life-giving impulse, stirring up men's imaginations to the production of new forms. The applied art of the Renascence did not come to us, as painting did, through the medium of Germany, but direct from Italy, its original source. Before the actual advent, however, of Italian Renascence masters, some productions of the new style in applied art had already found their way from Italy to the royal court of Poland, through the channels of trade. There is, for instance, in the Czartoryski Museum a fine piece of enamelled Venetian plate, which dates from the reign of King Alexander Jagello (1501-1506). Polish craftsmen, especially goldsmiths, did not become used to the new forms at once,, they only adopted them fragmentarily, and, in the mode of fashioning the whole, still adhered to the Gothic model. Examples of this are a fine reliquary in St. Mary's Church, the chalice of Bishop Padniewski, and other objects. Meantime, however, the royal court was paving the way for the new style; thus the King's donation of a magnificent golden reliquary (with relics of St. Sigismund) to the Treasury of the cathedral, was an important step in the promotion of Renascence fashions in art. Among the craftsmen artists who were attracted to the court by the favour it showed to the new style, the most eminent was Jacopo Caraglio (d. 1565). Like Cellini, he was excellent both as designer, engraver, goldsmith, enameller, ​gem-cutter, medallion maker, nay, architect into the bargain. It was through the agency of the famous pamphleteer Pietro
92. CAMP ALTAR OF KING SIGISMUND THE OLD. (Outward side.) Aretino, who had a taste for art, that Caraglio came to enter the service of King Sigismund I in 1539. In the Treasury of Cracow cathedral there is a sword of King Sigismund Augustus ​of 1540; it can hardly be doubted that this excellent piece of work came from the workshop of Caraglio.
The Sigismund Chapel, which appears like the first orient star in the heaven of the Polish Renasence, became the classic model of the new style. The magnificent Polish eagle, embossed in silver on the back of the marble throne (illustration 57), maywell have been the first piece of goldsmith's work in the Renascence fashion. Besides this, we find two most valuable monuments of German Renascence in the Sigismund Chapel; one of these is the silver altar-piece with side-wings, Nuremberg work of 1538 (illustrations 92, 93), the reliefs representing scenes from the life of Christ after engravings of Dürer's. This was made by order of King Sigismund I., after his victory over the Tartars. Three German masters of repute in the field of German applied art combined to produce this work: Peter Flötner supplied the reliefs carved in wood, Pancratius Labenwolf the bronze foundings, and Melchior Bayr the embossed work. The other Renascence ornaments of the Sigismund Chapel are two silver candlesticks, elaborate work of 1536; they were also given by King Sigismund I. About this time, 1530-1534, and in 1538, a brother of Albrecht Dürer's, named Andrew, a goldsmith, stayed at Cracow and executed some large orders. Unable to enter into a detailed history of Cracow goldsmith's art, most interesting as it is, we should only like to accentuate the fact that it formed a highly important branch of artistic manufacture and well deserves a special treatment. The height of its development was reached in the reign of King Sigismund Augustus, whose collections of objects of art enjoyed a worldwide fame. He also favoured the art by his habit of distributing presents of its production; thus, a badge he presented to the Shooters' Guild at Cracow, still in possession of the present Rifle Association, and worn by the champion shot at the yearly festivals, is a fine relic of Renascence goldsmiths' art. The King's example was followed by his courtiers; thus, a Court official, Severinus Boner, presented to the salt-miners of Wieliczka, near Cracow, in 1534, a magnificent buffalo's horn ​with embossed silver ornaments of a character pointing to Nuremberg manufacture, and perhaps influenced in some way by Andrew Dürer, then staying at the court.
93. CAMP ALTAR OF KING SIGISMUND THE OLD. (In the Cathedral.) Another most remarkable branch of artistic production is the manufacture of the silver belts belonging to the Polish national costume; in the same form in which we see them in portraits ​as early as the fourteenth century, they are being produced here to the present day. Silver spoons of sixteenth-century manufacture are preserved in great numbers; they are all adorned with humorous posies both in Polish and Latin; Polish poets of the period—Nicholas Rey, for—instance were in the habit of supplying such verses to the goldsmiths.—From the latter half of the sixteenth century French influences begin to predominate, many French goldsmiths settling at Cracow, one Pierre Remy among them. This current of French influence lasts through the whole of the seventeenth century. Among the native goldsmiths of this period there are some distinguished craftsmen, e.g., Samuel Piaskowski, who produced, in 1614, a badge for his guild in the shape of a large signet-ring with a relief.
The art of medallion-making makes a fine start in the Renascence period. The museums of Cracow all contain precious collections of medals of this time, the artists being for the most part Italians, such as Caraglio, Padovano, an anonymous one of 1527, and others. The Cracow Mint, under the administration of Justus Decius, was famous for the model coin that came from it. The copper and brass founders displayed a vigorous activity; but when the greatest bell in Poland was to be cast for Cracow cathedral, the task was entrusted to a German, John Behem of Nuremberg (d. 1533). His "Sigismund Bell," by its size and perfect shape as well as by the clear, deep, sonorous tone, is to be reckoned among the best that ever were cast. Another Nuremberg master, Sebaldus Singer, modelled the elaborate trellis door of the Sigismund Chapel, which was cast by Master Servats between 1525 and 1527. The great variety of such trellises in the several chapels, the considerable number of bronze baptismal fonts, and the ornamental guns of the period, all prove the excellence of Cracow founders and the generosity and good taste of those who gave orders for such work. For personalities, we may single out Oswald Baltner, brassfounder and gunsmith to the king; he had come from Nuremberg, and his work done at Cracow in the years 1559-1575 chiefly consists of guns noble in shape and adorned with reliefs (not unlike those in the arsenal at ​Berlin) and of beautiful church-bells. Another brassfounder, of equal importance as an artist, and likewise employed by the king, Simon Bochwicz, was knighted for his fine work. Even in later times, there were still eminent brassfounders at Cracow; a fine balustrade in St. Mary's Church (illustration 94), and others of the kind, are specimens of their work.
Of other branches of metal manufacture, equally beautiful and important specimens are to be seen in the churches and the
94. BRONZE RAILING OF THE HIGH ALTAR, ST. MARY'S CHURCH. collections, all of them bearing eloquent witness to the glories of Cracow craftsmanship in this period. In the tombs of the kings, e.g., we find splendid coffins of tin; that of Sigismund Augustus of 1574 is Danzig work and still exhibits pure Renascence forms; others, as that of Sigismund III or Ladislaus IV, are covered with scenes from the lives of the monarchs or other relief ornaments. Mention also must be made of the brass basins, the ornamental locks, and of the work of Cracow's armourers, illustrating the ​ 95. THE KMITA CHASUBLE. (Cathedral Treasury.) ​peculiar features of Polish armour. This, until the middle of the sixteenth century, was modelled on German and Italian; later on, there is a change in the breastplates, the so-called caracenes coming into use, which are cuirasses of movable metal scales. The arms of attack are always rich in ornament; never more so, however, than they became after the victories of King John Sobieski over the Turks. The booty he won, particularly at Vienna in 1683, doubtless contributed by its artistic value to produce the preference for magnificent armour and weapons which we notice in the latter seventeenth century. The sword-cutlers and goldsmiths of Cracow learned the art of Oriental ornamentation of armour from the Armenians then living here, and practised it during the two centuries that followed. This Oriental style was not limited to arms of attack; it was applied to all implements of war; we observe it, e.g., in the manufacture of Polish tents after the Turkish fashion, the tent-makers giving an artistic aspect to the cloths, which are richly embroidered on the inside. Examples of their work are found in the museums of Cracow. Embroidery generally reached, even in the early sixteenth century, a high stage of perfection at the hands of artizans called "silk hafters"; it is easy to see that they were aided in their work by real artists. A chasuble in the cathedral Treasury, being a gift of the Crown Marshal Peter Kmita, of date 1504, is a fine specimen of embroidered work (illustration 95). Of King Sigismund Augustus it is reported, that twenty-four arrases were made at his order in Flanders, being reproductions of cartoons by Raphael (but done long after his death, in 1560), which cost him 100,000 ducats. They adorned the royal apartments in the Wawel, but were, in 1794, transported to Gatchina, near St. Petersburg, where they have been ever since. Their subject was The Flood, and they illustrated, in a series of scenes, all the events of the biblical narrative from the creation of Adam and Eve to the building of the Tower of Babel. This custom of covering the walls with arrases or gobelins remained in force down to the late eighteenth century. In the Cathedral there are some that were designed by Snyders, representing the story of Cain and Abel; ​others from cartoons of Rubens' disciples, with scenes from the Iliad; others from Ruisdael's and Seghers's landscapes; some after Crayer; the story of Job the Patriarch done by Master Jakob van Zeunen, of Brussels; finally, the gobelin chasubles from the Warsaw factory of F. Glaize, dated 1745 and 1748. From the same workshop came the precious altar-cloths (antependia) to be
96. FRAGMENT OF EMBROIDERY ON THE KMITA CHASUBLE: BURIAL OF ST. STANISLAS. seen in the Czartoryski Museum. The ladies of the time were fond of art at home and produced works of exquisite taste, faithfully reflecting the change of fashions and styles. The embroideries of Queen Anne, at least, certainly deserve notice from this point of view. A bookbinding of 1582, or the altar-cloth of the Sigismund Chapel, may be mentioned as fine specimens of this kind of domestic industry.
​Besides embroideries and carpets, the manufacture of silk belts, which were an essential feature of the nobleman's costume, forms a highly important branch of applied art. Here, again, the
97. EMBROIDERED BELT (PART OF THE NOBLEMAN'S DRESS). Turkish conquests of John Sobieski may be taken as the startingpoint for the fashion of wearing those soft silk belts, often embroidered with gold and silver, which are evidently of Oriental origin, and have been ever since an indispensable part of the ​national dress. For a long time, these belts were imported from the Orient; Persian, Turkish, or Chinese belts of wool, silk, or brocade were used. The value of such a belt was between 50 and 500 ducats. But after some time, a clever, enterprising Armenian, John Madzarski, learned the art of weaving such belts in the Far East, and settled, in 1758, at Sluck in Lithuania. The workshop he established there became the model for numerous other belt factories all over the country. At Cracow such a factory was established rather late—only in 1787—by one Francis Maslowski, who conducted the business himself till 1807. His belts are distinguished by glaring colours, large flower patterns, and a serpentine ornament along the border (illustration 97).
Maslowski's was soon followed by other factories—of Pucilowski, Trajanowski, Paschalis, Stummer, and, in 1796, by that of Chmielowski. After the third division of Poland, the new governors of the country being hostile to all manifestations of ancient Polish civilization, ordinances were even issued which forbade the use of Polish dress, and the belt manufacturers, after dragging on their existence for some time, were soon ruined.
Of Cracow cabinetwork only very few relics have been preserved, which is probably to be explained by the frequent conflagrations that visited the town. Still, we find in some churches, e.g., in the cathedral, beautiful boxes, inlaid with parti-coloured wood; doors like the one preserved in the University Library, which is in perfect Renascence style; carved stalls like those in St. Mary's Church, of 1586, or those of the cathedral, or of Corpus Christi Church, which also possesses, in its huge high altar, a splendid masterpiece of cabinetmaker's art.
Finally, mention must be made of the magnificent bindings of Cracow MSS. and books; in the Renascence period, chiefly figure ornaments are used; they were stamped by means of punches into the leather of the binding.
Of late years, a Society for promoting applied art has been formed ​which, instead of the slavish imitation of foreign models, looks to the village people's primitive art for suggestions towards developing a style that would be the most perfect expression of national character in its originality and independence.
98. DIETL STREET.