Stanisław Wyspiański

15.01.1869—28.11.1907

#language & literature

Author: Culture.pl

Wyspiański grew up in Kraków during the late nineteenth century when the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The place and the community in which he was raised were instrumental in shaping his artistic imagination. His father, Franciszek, a sculptor, had an atelier at the foot of the Wawel hill, home to a cathedral rich with evidence of the strength of the former Polish state, and to a royal castle, by then an Austrian army barracks.

Stanisław attended St Anne's Gymnasium. Many of his schoolmates, including Jozef Mehoffer, Lucjan Rydel, Stanislaw Estreicher, were to play major roles in Kraków's cultural life. Instruction was bilingual so the students were thoroughly versed in German language, literature, and culture. A classical gymnasium, St Anne's also equipped its pupils with a thorough knowledge of antiquity - antique motifs would always be present in Wyspiański's work. A former capital city of a once powerful country, now reduced to the status of a smallish, inferior, provincial town, Kraków was a magical place, a point of reference and a challenge to the Polish consciousness of the late nineteenth century. On one hand, tradition was celebrated with pomp, and objects of the past were venerated. On the other, a group of historians emerged from the city's Jagiellonian University, challenging the Poles' vision of history, identifying the causes of national failures and the reasons for undesirable social behaviour. Kraków was also the birthplace of Polish modernism.

After his baccalaureate exam, Wyspiański enrolled at the Department of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University, and at the School of Fine Arts to study painting under Jan Matejko, the painter of large-scale historical canvases. As a student, he and his colleagues were involved in the renovation of St Mary's Church, and, during his summer travels across the Galicia and Kielce regions, he helped to develop a register of objects from the past. His most notable contribution was the discovery, in the village of Kruzlowa, of a fifteenth-century wooden statue of the Mother of God (now kept at the Krakow National Museum  and called the Madonna of Kruzlowa). This work must have encouraged him to take a more personal look at his country's heritage as well as increasing his sensitivity to detail in fine arts. Indeed, no matter whether he was looking at an object of art or creating one, his unique imagination made him view the work as a fragment of a historical event. When looking at a painting, a sculpture, or a piece of architecture, he would add a story that would make it dramatic, hence challenging the essentially static nature of fine arts. In Kraków he was able to see the finest Polish actors (including Helena Modrzejewska [aka Modjeska]), as well as taking part in amateur performances himself. Modernism, which was then coming of age, created an awareness of the co-existence of various arts. A student of painting, Wyspiański also tried his hand at writing minor lyrics as well as dramatic scenes that would often comment on his fine arts projects, like his Krolówa Polskiej Korony / Queen of the Polish Crown, which he wrote when working on a stained-glass window for the Lvov Cathedral. Years later, as a mature artist, he designed a series of (unrealised) stained-glass windows for the Wawel Cathedral and wrote poems devoted to the historical personages they depicted.

In 1890, Wyspiański travelled abroad, visiting Vienna, Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Como, Luzern, Basel, stopping for a while in Paris. Having visited the cathedral of Saint-Denis, he went to the famous Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Laon, Reims, Strasbourg, and then the Roman cathedrals, down to Nuremberg. He returned to Poland via a number of German towns, watching productions of plays by Goethe, Weber, Wagner and Shakespeare. He wrote detailed letters to his friends - mostly to Lucjan Rydel - which, together with the "Notatnik z podróży po Francji" [Notes on a Trip to Trip to France] were to become source material for his (unpublished) study of the French cathedrals.

In May, 1891, he went to France again, travelling across Austria and Switzerland, to continue his studies in Paris. Failing to get admitted to École des Beaux Arts, he started to paint in one of the Parisian ateliers within the Colarossi Academy. He loved the productions at Comédie Française, and frequented other theatres, too. Besides painting, he started to write dramas and opera librettos, addressing historical and mythological themes seen from the perspective of the end of the century. His studies abroad introduced him to the latest aesthetic trends, including the modern understanding of applied art and the diverse approaches of European theatre. More importantly, his studies helped him to discover Gothic and the phenomenon of the cathedral as a consummate work of art, the most perfect expression of its age. Ever since that moment, he nurtured a need to create a complete work of art, which, like a Gothic cathedral, would be able to accommodate the entire experience of history and modernity.