Originalveröffentlichung in: Henshaw, Julia (Hrsg.): Symbolism in : collected essays ; publ. in conjunction with the exhibition "Symbolism in Polish Painting 1890 - 1914", July 30 - September 23, 1984, Detroit 1984, S. 35-38 The Chivalric Myth in the Art of Jacek Malczewski, Stanislaw Wyspiariski, and Witold Wojtkiewicz

Andrzej Rottermund

The concept of , with its code of soldier who must choose between personal of the present, many painters trespassed on exemplary behavior based on the ideals of happiness at the side of his beloved and his the territory formerly reserved for literary perfection and internal harmony, has obligation to sacrifice his life for his home­ bards and national prophets, each bringing always been a significant element in Euro­ land, and the historic Polish -warrior to the past his own “historical sense.” pean culture. The knight’s most important, became the contemporary knight-citizen- Jacek Malczewski saw the past less in and appropriate, occupation was to fight patriot. As Witold Gombrowicz would terms of subjects and plots and more in for truth and justice, always with regard for later say, “A Pole is either a romantic son of terms of ideas and philosophies. The the rules of the code and respect for the dig­ defeat or a virtuous son of Poland. ”3 sources for many of the symbols in Malczew- nity of his enemy. The ideal knight was Throughout the literature, historiogra­ ski’s paintings are tobe found in the con­ courageous, faithful, honest, polite, and phy, and art of the Mloda Polska period, stellation of meanings traditionally ac­ generous, but atthe same time he was ex­ knightly models, including kings and het­ cepted by European culture, which reflect pected to avenge even the slightest insult to mans, are depicted in the most exciting the national mythology and both European his honor. A knight’s transgression of the moments of Poland’s history. These color­ and Polish history. The figures of code of chivalry would bring him infamy, ful stories of courage, devotion, faith, and and their attributes, armor, weapons, which could only be erased by death. The loyalty are interlaced with the thread of leopard skins, medieval castles, etc., are knight’s brutality on the battlefield was love. But this love is not the Ovidian ars symbols which have an “overt meaning,”5 softened by his love for a chosen woman, amanti but rather a dramatic love, torn be­ and it is not difficult to connect them to the which he proved through courageous deeds tween personal happiness and public duty. national , the history of the and participation in noble competition. The The same choice faces both Polish mon­ motherland, or the defense of the universal concept of chivalry encompassed not only archs and Polish insurgents, those partici­ notions of freedom, truth, and beauty. the knight himself, but the armor he wore, pants in the successive national uprisings However, to date, the analysis of form and the weapons he carried, his horse (so that characterized the ’ most recent content in Malczewski ’s work has not made important in battle), the castle he inhabited, history (see figs. 1-4). clear the sources from which the artist the tournaments in which he participated, For the creators of the Mloda Polska derived his personal artistic world, and an the emblems that distinguished him from all movement, the present was what counted, understanding of these sources is essential if others (his coat of arms), and the etiquette and they were open to new ways of perceiv­ we are to fully comprehend his works. It that defined his position and behavior. ing and understanding it as they tried to seems clear that Malczewski derived the At the end of the eighteenth and begin­ liberate themselves from the nineteenth ­ formula for his “world ” from the spirit of ning of the nineteenth centuries, Europe century manner of thinking and feeling. Romanticism, with its unusual composi ­ witnessed a revival of interest in the code of This intellectual ferment, however, while it tional arrangements, intriguing coloration, chivalry and the knight as a model of per­ changed the way one spoke of, wrote models of peculiar beauty or ugliness, and sonal behavior worthy of imitation.1 This about, or painted the past, did not preclude refined scenery. reborn chivalry functioned in European cul­ these artists ’ interest in the nation’s history. Leaving aside the differences between a ture as a myth that had both a social and a The Polish spirit continued to be fueled by literary work and a painting, Malczewski’s political character.2 On the one hand, it the inspiration provided by images from the art, in its density and intensification of sym­ was the manifestation of the longing of var­ mythological past. These images were fixed bols, in its atmosphere of ambiguity and ious peoples for a respectable national his­ in the Polish mind, and their interpretations hidden threat, is similar to the modern tory and for national heroes. On the other were confined within intransgressible boun­ “gothic” horror novel. In building his artist­ hand, in the nineteenth century, the chival­ daries. It was as if the past were carved in ic visions, Malczewski conformed, to some rous model underwent a metamorphosis granite: the images could be polished but extent, to the rules that govern this genre, that enabled the notions of honor, service, their basic configurations could not easily with its supernatural elements and sense of and exemplary behavior to be used in ef­ be changed. horror, its inexplicable phenomena and ac­ forts to reshape the public’s attitudes and The most notable painters of the period, tions, its ominous and mysterious atmos ­ behavior. Particularly in Poland, a country Jacek Malczewski, Stanislaw Wyspiariski, phere. The mood of such a novel is achieved deprived of independence, the chivalric and Witold Wojtkiewicz, lived in Cracow. by introducing signs and symbols from the myth was pressed into service for political, There they wandered between the Wawel world of the supernatural into everyday re­ social, and didactic purposes. In this reviv ­ Hill and the Mounds of the three national ality or by presenting everyday events in al, the understanding of what constituted heroes, the great leader Tadeusz Kosci- unusual contexts. The plot of the gothic Poland’s knightly past was not limited to uszko and the legendary figures Krak and novel exists on two levels: the human the glorious deeds of the Piasts (Poland’s Wanda; they walked in the cloisters of drama being contrasted against afantastic first royal dynasty). The concept was ex­ medieval monasteries and the halls of the background, usually an idyllic landscape or tended to include events up to the end of the city’s great museums, full of blackened medieval castle. In the gothic novel, man seventeenth century when, in the face of a family portraits and patriotic prints; and battles against the perversity of fate, where ­ growing Turkish threat, the Poles rose up in their hearts and imaginations were filled by his destiny is dependent upon incompre­ defense of their territories and the Catholic with visions that had not lost their sug­ hensible, supernatural, even cruel forces. faith, giving rise to the idea of Poland as the gestive power. Throughout the years of An inexorable chain of events forces him to “bulwark of Christianity” and the Polish captivity, Poland had endured, and the an­ pose ultimate questions in dealing with this nobleman as “Miles Christianus,” or the cient patterns of behavior and the ancient destiny. Christian soldier. myths thus retained their validity. The ar­ In Malczewski ’s world, as in the gothic Out of the rich ground of the chivalric tists found themselves caught between two novel, unusual, supernatural events occur myth and under the influence of the politi ­ worlds, the knightly world of their ancient and mysterious elements are introduced, cal situation, Polish writers and artists Sarmatian ancestors 4 and the world of the creating an atmosphere of tension, of lurk­ created two knightly models: the hero of present, stamped with the image of the ing danger. Devils, harpies, chimeras, the courtly romance was changed into a approaching twentieth century. In the name phantoms, satyrs, muses, angels, winged

35 36 horses, and appear as symbols of function of the work of art and about the dral. Created in 1900-02, the cartoons for mysterious forces. The unusual attire of the artist’s role in society that have their roots the windows present two rulers, Kazimierz human figures—soldiers’ uniforms, knight’s in the Romantic era. His powerful visions Wielki (Casimir the Great) and Henryk armor, the costume of the court jester, the constitute one of the most vigorous links in Pobozny (Henry the Pious), and the bishop clothes typical of the ancient nobility—as the chain of Polish culture, conveying into , Stanislaw Szczepanow (see fig. 5 a-c). well as the unusual objects, birds, animals, our life today ideas born in the epoch of For Wyspiariski the notions of sleeping and insects, and flowers, all add to the sense of Romanticism. awaking had very definite connotations. unreality. Stanislaw Wyspiariski, in his dramas, One condition did not necessarily follow The key position in Malczewski’s vision Wesele (The Wedding), Acropolis, Wyz- the other; one may stay asleep for good. is held by the landscape, which provides a wolenie (Liberation), and Boleslaw Smialy Sleep is a numbness that leads to the inabili­ setting appropriate for his scenes of suffer­ (Boleslaw the Bold) calls forth a knightly ty to act and, thence, to death. Awakening ing and drama. The artist found no aesthet­ past that might be reassuring and might in­ is a resurrection to action, a rebirth of new ic satisfaction in the landscape as a land­ spire patriotic deeds but, one which could forces and of life. The crypt of the cathedral scape, believing instead that the function of also turn into a hollow formality, pulled represents the domain of sleep and death, the landscape was to provide an appropri­ from the storehouse of history. but Wyspiariski’s placement of his images in ate setting. In a letter from to a Wyspiariski’s artistic passion centered the sanctuary of the cathedral establishes it friend, he wrote: on the Wawel Hill and what that national as the domain of awakening to life. The im­ monument meant in terms of the myth of a ages themselves, suggestive, monumental­ ... it surprises you, perhaps, that knightly past. This meaning was most sug­ ized forms of heroic figures, are ambivalent from this classical land, that trodding gestively expressed in the words of the in meaning. They are not idealized figures the ground of the harmoniously Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasihski:but putrifying cadavers in musty royal gar­ shaped gods, that from the middle of ments and rotten coffins. Did Wyspiariski, holy groves and sunny acropolises, I With all my soul, I plunged into the by placing these figures in the symbolic am sending you all these complaints past whose symbols towered before sphere of Wawel Cathedral, mean to wake and sufferings. What can I do, me in the arabesques, in the fantastic them? To this question there is no unani­ though? I cannot help it; perhaps I arcades and naves of the Gothic mous answer. In calling the corpses of am some sort of national moan, cathedral. Together with me, look at Polish historical heroes to a national Last made flesh and doomed to a life full the knights who rise from their Judgment, inside the national Pantheon, of sorrow and lamentations.6 tombs, at kings elected by the nation did the artist intend to show their banish­ who approach the altar, sinking to One could guess that in Malczewski’s ment to the hell of oblivion and destruction, their knees to receive the Lord’s unc­ paintings the landscape serves the same pur­ to keep them forever asleep in the tion! All of Old Poland has risen to pose as it does in the novels of Witold Gom- cathedral’s crypt? Or did he hope to show my voice: Here she is! Here she is! browicz, that is, their awakening to eternal life, that they She! Look how great, how magnifi­ might continue to strengthen the Polish “to hide something else . . . what?cent, sparkling with arms, clamorous spirit? Whatever sense ... of war, revo­ with shouts, harmonious with songs The motif of chivalry, broadly under­ lution, violence, promiscuity, pover­ — a shield against the , pro­ stood, also appears in the art of Witold ty, despair, hope, flight, fury, shout, tecting Europe in a gigantic struggle, Wojtkiewicz, particularly in the cycle he murder, captivity, infamy, death, from the gates of Constantinople to called Ceremonie (Ceremonies) (see cat. the walls of .8 curse, or blessing . . . Whatever, I am nos. 94-98).12 In this series of drawings and saying, the sense was too feeble to His fascination with the legend of the paintings, Wojtkiewicz is concerned with pierce through the crystal of this sleeping knights,9 which had its origins in the ceremonial rituals of chivalry. In the idyll, and thus left this obsolete, Polish folktales, found expression both in past, courtly ceremonies provided a precise sweet little view untouched, though it Wyspiariski’s literary works and his visual framework in which all of life’s events and is now only a facade . . .7 art. These lines from Boleslaw the Bold are emotions could find a place. One could A multitude of meaningful motifs of typical: compare this ritualistic framework on gothic origin emanate from Malczewski’s which courtly life was based to a text illus­ They would tell me long ago that paintings: evil hidden in beauty, good car­ trated with carefully choreographed somewhere in the Carpathians the ried by hideousness, insanity, moans of the figures, which everyone had to learn by king, Boleslaw Chrobry, and his soul, unsolvable situations, courage and heart. Certain elements of these chivalric knights with their horses and armor fear, sin and innocence, illness and death. ceremonies continued to function in the are asleep in caves near the subter­ bourgeois codes of manners at the begin­ When I say that Malczewski’s painting is ranean woods.10 only partially subordinate to the rules ning of the twentieth century. governing the gothic novel, I mean that the In various versions of the legend, the sym­ Wojtkiewicz was an activist in the world constructed by the painter is not bolic shelter of Boleslaw’s sleeping knights socialist movement, and the difficulty of in­ limited to presenting abstract situations; it is either the mountains or the dungeons of corporating these ancient ceremonies and also evidences an unusually extensive auto­ the Wawel, where they wait in an impene­ symbolic forms into the contemporary biographical context. In Melancholia trable wilderness or in the crypt of the social system must have been evident to (Melancholy) (cat. no. 17); Blpdne kolo Wawel Cathedral for Poland to call them to him. He felt that these empty forms consti­ (The 'Vicious Circle); Inspiracja malarza battle for her freedom. The mountains and tuted a powerful obstacle standing in the (The Painter’s Inspiration); in the cycles the Wawel Hill, the national Pantheon, way of progress as anew system of values such as Moje zycie (My Life) (see cat. nos. become symbols of a huge power asleep in emerged. Wojtkiewicz did not attack the 29, 30, and 31); and in scores of self-por­ the nation, which, if awakened, would universal values embodied in the chivalric traits (see cat. nos. 27 and 32), Malczewski strike a blow against those who keep the code, but he felt adherence to the code serv­ is speaking of his won battles with adversi­ nation captive. In another work, the ed to preserve outmoded hierarchies, to ty, of his own fate being threatened by evil, knights are called to action: “Take up your support bigotry and serfdom, to impede of the hidden forces that direct the creative arms, mount your horses, and let the battle personal freedom and spontaneity of ac­ process. By contemplating his own fate, he begin.”11 tion. On the stage of his “theatrum forces us to look into the future, to con­ The motifs of sleep and awakening are ceremoniale,” Wojtkiewicz presents a pic­ front our own destiny. In making the artist common in all of Wyspiariski’s art. Good ture of a world wherein pathetic gestures the hero of his paintings, Malczewski em­ examples are the three stained-glass win­ are performed in the absence of feeling, braced ideas about the significance and dows that he designed for Wawel Cathe­ where garments are embroidered with gold 37 and uniforms decorated with lace to add 1. The subject of chivalry in European culture Warsaw, 1969: 194. importance to their owners, and where has been widely discussed; see in particular, 6. J. Malczewski, letter to K. M. G6rski, retinues exist to pay homage merely to M. Ossowska, Ethos Rycerski i jego odmi- 9-28-1884, manuscript 7675 II, Jagiello- satisfy the recipient’s pride and love of any, Warsaw, 1973, and M. Girouard, The nian Library, Cracow. Return to Camelot!Chivalry and the Eng­ 7. W. Gombrowicz, “Pornographia,” in Dziela power. Tears are shed in grotesque and lish Gentleman, New Haven and London, zebrane, , 1970: II, 18-19. tragic farewell scenes. Young girls defer 1981. 8. Z. Krasiriski, letter to Henry Reeve, Cor­ marriage to prove their refined manners. 2. On the function of this myth in literature, respondence de Sigismond Krasihski et du Men pretend ardent prayer to exhibit their see E. Kuzma, Mit Orientu i Kultury Henry Reeve, edited by J. Kallenbach, faith, kill each other in duels to meet the Zachodu w literaturze XIX i XX urieku, Paris, 1902: III, 51-52. demands of honor, or commit crimes in the Szczecin, 1980. 9. On the subject of the sleeping knights in name of military ideology. Thus, in this cy­ 3. W. Gombrowicz, Dziennik (1953-56), Polish painting and literature, see A. Rot- cle, the artist attempted to destroy the Paris, 1957: 332. termund, “The ‘Road to Independence’ in myth, to show its absurdity and artificiality, 4. The concept of the Poles as descendants of of the 19th Century,” Bulletin de the Sarmatians, the only tribe to resist the Musee National de Varsovie 20, 2/3 to point to its dangers. Wojtkiewicz’s at­ ancient Romans, arose in the sixteenth cen­ (1979): 62-64, and F. Ziejka, “Z Dziej6w titude toward the chivalric myth was not an tury, and the idea of the true Sarmatian — a literackiej slawy spiqcych rycerzy,” isolated phenomenon, as is witnessed by the brave warrior, conscientious landlord, re­ Pamifnik Literacki R. LXXXIV, c. 2 work of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and spectable father, and good Christian — be­ (1983): 23-49. Witold Gombrowicz. But with the coming came a model for the Polish gentry in the 10. S. Wyspiariski, “Boleslaw Smiaiy,” in Dziela of the First World War, the myth again re­ Baroque era. zebrane, edited by L. Ploszewski,Cracow, asserted itself and remains today a signifi­ 5. A. Lawniczakowa, “Proba klasyfikacji 1961: II, 83. cant element in the Polish tradition.przedstawieri symbolicznych w dziefach 12. See W. Juszczak, Wojtkieivicz i nowa sztuk plastycznych,” in Sztuka okolo 1900, sztuka, Warsaw, 1965: 130-131.

Figure 1. Marceli Bacciarelli, Italian, active in Poland, 1731-1818, Figure 2. J6zef Grassi, Italian, active in Poland, 1758-1838, Por- Sobieski pod Wiedniem (Sobieski at the Walls of Vienna), tret Tadeusza Kosciuszki, (Portrait of Tadeusz Kosciuszko), 1792, 1782-83, oil on canvas, 60 x 54 cm. National Museum in Warsaw.oil on canvas, 112x90 cm. National Museum in Poznan. 38

Figure 4. Piotr Michalowski, Polish, 1800-1855, Hetman Jablonowski na koniu (The Hetman Jablonowski on a Horse), watercolor. National Museum in Cracow.

Figure 3. , Polish, 1838-1893, Bitwa pod Grun- waldem {The Battle of Tannenberg, detail), 1878, oil on canvas, 426 x 987 cm. Collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

5a-c. Stanislaw Wyspiariski, Polish, 1869-1907, Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great), Henryk Pobony (Henry the Pious), and Sw. Stanislaw biskup ze Szczepanowa (Bishop Saint Stanislaw Szczepanow), 1900-02, cartoons for stained glass, pastel. National Museum in Cracow.