The Restoration of the Wall Paintings in the Holy Cross Chapel of the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków

View of painted ceiling vaults in the Holy Cross Chapel in Wawel, Kraków. Originally painted in 1471, restored several times. Photograph Marek Gardulski. 50 https://doi.org/10.1162/grey_a_00303 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00303 by guest on 01 October 2021 The Restoration of the Wall Paintings in the Holy Cross Chapel of the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków ALOIS RIEGL TRANSLATED BY LUCIA ALLAIS AND ANDREI POP It is hardly by chance that, at the close of the extensive program for the restoration of Kraków’s cathedral, the chapel of the Holy Cross, signifi- cant above all for its wall paintings, was left for last. There must have been a feeling that in this chapel, on the one hand, questions of building conservation that otherwise dominate restoration projects recede behind that of the handling of the paintings; on the other hand, that if such treatment aimed to satisfy all legitimate demands, it would face wholly unusual difficulties. Well, now this space is next in line, after everything else in the cathedral stands as good as remade. In order to really understand the manner in which this last great task in the restoration of Kraków Cathedral has been undertaken, one must know just what judgment the competent public has passed on the work hitherto completed. The restoration of such an extensive complex, of at times exceptional artworks and historical monuments, in a multi- national city possessing other rich treasures of the past and thus exhibiting its age values [Altertumswerten] to a large circle of interested parties— this could hardly go unnoticed. In point of fact, its various phases have been followed very attentively by “public opinion” in Kraków. That an enterprise of this kind, taking place at the end of the century, in very eventful times, would meet with a very conflicted and occasionally even hostile assessment seems self-evident today. For it began in a time when the goal of all restoration was still seen as the return of the work to be restored to its original and, above all consistent, style [Stilzustand]. But since then, a new movement has grown powerful, that asks less for the formal qualities of the original style and longs instead for the imponder- able effects of mood, called forth mainly through pure optic becoming and enjoyment [Ausleben]. Naturally, the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków had to become the bone of contention between the two parties, like St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and, most recently, Heidelberg Castle. Grey Room 80, Summer 2020, pp. 50–67. © 2020 Grey Room, Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 51 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00303 by guest on 01 October 2021 As it stands today almost completed, the work will not be able to please everyone. But an impartial spectator will have to admit that through the reconstruction—especially thanks to the intentions of the client, the Cardinal-Prince-Bishop of Kraków, Kniaz Puzyna—a truly monumental whole was created, one that matches up very well to the building’s over- whelming historical fate and traditions, even if in detail the intimate effect of its mood has been forfeited along with the all-too-carefully scrubbed-out signs of age. Now finally it is the turn of the paintings. Here it is less a question of returning them to their former tangible form than of preserving a specific optical impression. For their restoration, the principle that had reigned over the rest of the project—that of a maximally complete and perfect renewal—must have seemed questionable from the start. It is under- standable that in this respect the circles that had regarded the whole Wawel restoration critically were overcome by a particular nervousness. The responsible organs of the Imperial Central Commission [k. k. Zentralkommission] believe they are answerable to this tendency, which daily gains ground and prestige especially in the treatment of old paintings. At their urging, the Imperial Ministry of Cult and Education [k. k. Ministerium für Kultus und Unterricht] recommended to the client, first, that before preparing the definitive restoration program, they should investigate, most carefully and taking into account all relevant factors, to what degree the extant paintings can be preserved unchanged in the condition in which they came to us. Second, they recommended that any additions deemed necessary should be confined to their absolute minimum, perhaps out of considerations of religious observance [Kultus]. His Eminence the Prince-Bishop, filled with the desire to see this last work of restoration completed in the best way possible, readily complied with the wishes of the Ministry and the Central Commission. The painter Julius Makarewicz from Lemberg [modern Lviv, Ukraine], who for years has been conducting research on Byzantine painting in the Slavic lands, with regard to both their technique and their iconographic character, was entrusted with executing the restoration. Makarewicz conducted an especially thorough technical study of the wall paintings. On the basis of those results, he proposed a restoration plan that was just presented for approval to the organs of the central authority during a meeting of a local commission. Professor Maryan Sokołowski, a reliable advocate of art historical interests, has proven, alongside Canon [Czesław] Wa˛dolny a particularly trusted confidant of His Eminence the Prince-Bishop, lending valuable assistance. The case is unusually complicated, and innumerable obstacles stand in the way of making a decision along reasonable principles. But for just 52 Grey Room 80 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00303 by guest on 01 October 2021 this reason, it is especially instructive and deserves to be brought to the attention of those interested in public monument preservation [Denkmalpflege], as is done below. The basis for the following presentation consists of: first, a detailed and illuminating report sent to the Central Commission by the tireless Dr. Stanislaus v. Tomkowicz, the accom- plished conservator who is responsible for the restoration of the cathedral; second, existing oral reports from the restorer about the results of his examination of the originals; finally, the firsthand perceptions of the undersigned author. First, we must report what was already known about the paintings of the Holy Cross Chapel. We have records not only of the time of the chapel’s construction in late-Gothic style during the years 1461–1470, but also of the year when the interior was first painted, 1471, which is visible on an inscription that is still preserved today, though it has been repainted. But it did not escape observers around the middle of the last century (cf. Josef v. Łepkowski, “Die Heiligengeist- und Heiligkreuzkapelle der Krakauer Domkirche,” in the Mitt. der Z.K., 1860, p. 294) that the upper parts of the chapel, at least on the exterior, must have undergone a redesign in the course of the sixteenth century.1 Furthermore, it had been obvious for even longer that the paintings, in their iconographic character as well as in their drawing, composition, and coloration, dif- fered entirely from the Western artistic mode that was otherwise domi- nant in Kraków, betraying much more of a pronounced Byzantine style, of the kind practiced especially in the neighboring Russian Empire, with its capital in Kiev. This impression was reinforced by the great number of inscriptions explaining individual pictures in the Russian language, to the point that the chapel has been known for ages simply as the “Russian” (Łepkowski, op. cit.). No contemporary report about the painting of the chapel or its authors has been preserved, apparently; but already in the sixteenth century, chronicle writers tended to say that Russian painters from Wilna [Vilnius] had been called up from their Lithuanian hometown by the Jagiellonian dynasty to carry out the work. This later report might, in fact, be merely the result of idea association, but it corresponds splendidly with the otherwise documented predilec- tion of the older Jagiellonians for an East European style [Wesen, literally “essence”], which contrasts with the Western—and especially German— art that was then constantly gaining ground in Poland. However, an observer of the year 1860 (the aforementioned J. v. Łepkowski) already had the impression that the chapel’s paintings could not all have been started at one and the same time. To him it seemed especially that, while the ceiling paintings with the choirs of saints may indeed have gone back to the time of the original painting (1471), by con- Riegl | The Restoration of the Wall Paintings in the Holy Cross Chapel of the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków 53 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/grey_a_00303 by guest on 01 October 2021 trast the paintings on the side walls, with scenes of Christ’s life, must Above: “Wall painting from have belonged to a later time—indeed, to the sixteenth century, during the Holy Cross Chapel in Wawel, Kraków, state after which the upper parts of the exterior were redesigned. These observa- being repainted in the tions of Łepkowski are of great value to us because they were made at a nineteenth century.” time when the paintings could still be seen in a state that no longer meets Figure 81 of Alois Riegl, “Die Restaurierung der our eyes, and whose reconstruction would suffice to make us happy, Wandmalereien in der were such a thing possible. Heiligkreuzkapelle des And so, what one sees in the chapel today in terms of paint are not the Domes auf dem Wawel zu Krakau” (The Restoration of paintings of the Greco-Russian masters of 1471 but those of the half- the Wall Paintings in the Holy modern painter [Izydor] Jabłon´ski [1865–1905].

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