"Ochrona Zabytków", ISSN 0029-8247, nr 3/99

Wstęp - Dorota Matyaszczyk, s. 211-213

Introduction

ARTYKUŁY / ARTICLES

Zofia Kurzawa, Andrzej Kusztelski,
Poznański barok, s. 216-224

The Baroque in Poznań

The Poznań version of the Baroque is represented by great monastic realisations founded by the local gentry: Carmelite, Jesuit, Franciscan, Bernardine, and Reformed Franciscan churches, a Jesuit college and the interior of a Dominican church. The objects in question were raised by outstanding architects: Krzysztof Bonadura (active through the entire region, who introduced a type of a church modelled on the Roman Il Gesu), Jerzy and Jan Catenazzi and Bartłomiej Nataniel Wąsowski. The Jesuit church, in which, thanks to Wąsowski, original solutions and unique forms, not employed elsewhere, were applied, became one of the most impressive Baroque objects in the Commonwealth.
Baroque sculpture appeared in Poznań in the 1680s during the decoration of the parish church - stucco decoration on the interior, ascribed to Wąsowski, and on the outside - a complex of monumental ceramic sculptures on the façade. A stucco workshop of Alberto Bianco was established in Great Poland in about 1700, and became widely renowned throughout Great Poland. This was also the period of the origin of the works by Antoni Swach, who executed altars for his monastery. Finally, in the course of the eighteenth century, there arrived rather numerous Bohemian, Austrian and Bavarian sculptors, who worked mainly as carvers. Mention is due to Franz A. Brumbacher, Simon Beitinger and Augustyn Schöps.
Painting of the first half of the seventeenth century is represented by the Manneristic, Counter-Reformation works by two artists extremely significant for Polish art of the time: the Italian Tomasso Dolabello and Krzysztof Boguszewski. The Counter-Reformation favoured the development of guild religious paintings, and large altar compositions. Great variety is represented by portraits, predominantly the coffin portrait and, to a much smaller degree, the full-figure and semi-figure portrait. Popularity was enjoyed during the seventeenth century by the Franciscan Adam Swach, the author of easel compositions and polychromies in the churches of Poznań, Owińska, Ląd, Pyzdry, Kalisz and Wełna; he worked also in Łowicz, Jarosław and Krasnystaw. Swach was accompanied by the monks Stanisław Gampey and Walenty Żebrowski, whose works survived in Wschowa, Warta and Kalisz. In about 1699, the Poznań Jesuits invited the Silesian painter Karol Dankwart to decorate the ceiling of their church, while likenesses of St. Stanisław the bishop and St. Stanisław Kostka were executed in 1754-1756 by Szymon Czechowicz.
The Poznań goldsmiths attained a high rank in the second half of the sixteenth century, and came, for all practical purposes, second after the capital town of Cracow; they managed to maintain this status up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The artists included Tobiasz Jasłowski, Jan Dill from Frankfurt-on-the-Main, Stanisław Szwarc, Jan Leman II, Wojciech Budzyniewicz, Jacenty Piątkowski, Michał Meissner, and Marcin Endemann. Next to excellent execution and the noble proportions of the works of art, the Poznań environment produced a number of characteristic elements, rarely or never encountered in other centres.

Zofia Kurzawa,
Kaplica Matki Boskiej Niepokalanej w poznańskim kościele p.w. św. Antoniego Padewskiego, s. 225-228

The Chapel of the Immaculate Madonna in the Churchof St. Anthony of Padua in Poznań

A domed Marian chapel was raised in the church of the conventual Franciscans in Poznań in 1681, upon the initiative of the guardian Wojciech Zawada. The lavish stucco decoration was produced in 1701 by the workshop of Alberto Bianco. The painted decoration was executed in 1702 by Adam Swach, prolific painter and Franciscan monk. Already previously, in 1688-1693, Adam Swach assisted his older brother, Antoni, also a Franciscan, in building the altar. The entire chapel, together with its decoration and outfitting, is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Madonna. On the outside, this intention is accentuated by the golden figure of the Immaculata, glistening at the top of the dome. Inside, particular elements refer, either directly or in the form of symbols, to Mary. The central point is a wooden, dark main altar, embellished by expanded ornaments and enhanced by spiral columns and paintings. The centre of this magnificent altar, imbued with Marian symbolic, is occupied by the small silver-framed copy of the miraculous likeness of the Our Lady of Bor.

Dorota Matyaszczyk,
Kościół p.w. św. Klemensa w Zakrzewie - przykład barokowej, drewnianej świątyni wielkopolskiej, s. 229-238

The Church of St. Clemens in Zakrzewo as an Exampleof a Baroque Wooden Church in Great Poland

The greatest number of wooden and timbered churches in Europe is to be found in Poland. Copious descriptions concern the wooden churches in Silesia and Little Poland, while historical monuments from this group in Great Poland remain almost unknown, although their extant number totals about 270. The author discusses the most characteristic features of Protestant and Catholic wooden and timbered churches in Great Poland upon the example of the church n Zakrzewo near Rawicz.
The wooden church of St. Clemens is oriented, and has a frame construction, while the chapel from 1647 and the sacristy are made of plastered brick. The interior of the church is covered by a wooden cradle ceiling, supported by a profiled crowning cornice. The semicircular rood arch with a beam distinguish the interior of the presbytery from the nave. The western part of the nave contains a choir with a profiled balustrade. The entrance to the chapel is decorated by a splendid Baroque grate from the first half of the eighteenth century. The most magnificent element of the church is its Baroque polychromy from about 1730, encompassing the entire interior: the ceiling, walls, pillars, beams underneath the choir and the sill of the choir, the rood arch and the doors to the porch. The plant tendril and acanthus leaf ornament, which covers the walls in the manner of a carpet, is executed in warm hues, endowing the interior with a joyful ambience. In between, arcade spaces contain figural depictions. The ceiling displays scenes from the life of St. Clemens as well as the figures of Our Lady, Christ and the apostles. The southern wall is decorated with scenes from the life of the Holy Virgin Mary: The Madonna and the Infant, The Immaculate Madonna, and The Enthroned Madonna, adored by kneeling founders, both secular and clergymen. The western wall shows St. Stanisław with Piotrowin, facing the king. The arcade sill and the walls of the choir feature the four Evangelists. The ceiling of the chapel is also covered by an ornament, and the door from the porch to the nave contains preserved blue floral decoration. The Late Baroque altar of the chapel displays a painting of the Madonna of Consolation, possibly the work of an Italian painter; featured in a silver Rococo dress, it is concealed by another composition. The walls shoow five coats of arms painted on tin and three on brass; in the past, they were featured in coffin portraits. The remaining outfitting originates from the eighteenth century. The wooden church in Zakrzewo is guaranteed legal protection; although its interior is one of the most interesting in Great Poland, it remains almost totally unknown.

Alicja Karłowska-Kamzowa, Dorota Matyaszczyk,
Dekoracja dworu w Osieku koło Kościana, s. 239-245

Decorations in the Manor in Osiek near Kościan

For centuries, the most typical building material was timber. Unfortunately, susceptibility to fire rendered it impermanent. This is the reason why the discovery, during the repair of a manor in Osiek near Kościan, of painted boards, re-used at the beginning of the twentieth century as division walls, proved to be a true sensation. Covered by a layer of cane and plastered, they remained concealed and cut off from light. The repair unexpectedly disclosed the boards to the construction workers. Although the appearance of the boards was rather pitiful -the re-cut, arbitrarily arranged fragments were disfigured with nails - their attraction lay in the colourfulness and the colourfulness and multiplicity of depictions. The light, which reached the very thin colour layer, was capable of destroying fragments crumbling away from the foundation. Salvage came in the form of conservation conducted by Krzysztof Powidzki. Next to secular figures, undefined by inscriptions or coats of arms, there emerged the semi-figures of apostles, described by means of inscriptions. Such galleries of likenesses (which must have totalled12) embellished churches fromthe fourteenth century on. In Osiek, the depictions painted on the walls imitated paintings proper, but at the bottom and top they were enhanced by additional ornamental elements. The characteristic feature of the boards from Osiek was an imitation of a theme unambiguously defining the Ecclesia - the institution of the Church in sacral interiors. We are entitled to assume that this symbolic no longer functioned in the decoration in question. Likenesses of the disciples of Christ were merely a decorationof an adobe of a Christian, the owner of the house. The paintings come undoubtedly from the first half of the eighteenth century, and some of their details indicate the 1730s- 1740s.They constitute testimony of the decoration of interiors both in Baroque representative sacral buildings and in provincial manors of a more local nature.
After conservation, the boards from Osiek were installed on a permanent basis in one of the chambers of the palace in Trzebiny. Particles of the painted decoration of the interiors of a gentry manor recall a space which, similarly to its inhabitants, became part of the distant past.

Krzysztof Powidzki,
Konserwacja polichromowanych desek z Osieka koło Kościana, s. 246-249

The Conservation of Polychromy Boards from Osieknear Kościan

The author describes the course of the conservation of polychromy boards discovered in 1988 in a manor in Osiek near Kościan. The boards covered the wooden construction of a division wall and a ceiling in a staircase and the first floor of the building. Made of coniferous wood of various width and length, and 2,5-4 cm. thick, the boards are hand-worked, with traces left by the tools - a chisel and a plane. The clearly visible texture of the wood shows numerous indentations around the knots and a slightly uneven surface. Chalk-glue, white and thin grounding, and a painted layer (thin tempera - glutinous glue and oil varnish) were placed on this basis. The colour of the polychromy is composed of ochre: yellow, red. and brown, whitening, achieved by means of white lead, white elements - chalk with the addition of white lead, and terra di Siena. The polychromy is dated as the 1730s, and its author remains unknown. The original composition configurations were damaged due to the cutting of the boards and their adaptation to a new function, i. e. that of building material. The extant fragments were used for the completion of five compositions intended for museum display. The boards were rendered whole and the painted layer was made permanent by a group of conservators headed by Krzysztof Powidzki. Today, they are displayed in the palace in Trzebiny near Leszno.

Dorota Matyaszczyk,
Pałac w Konarzewie, s. 250-263

The Palace in Konarzewo

During the 1990s, a discovery was made in the palace erected at the end of the seventeenth century by Andrzej Radomicki, a magnate from Great Poland, of paintings subsequently subjected to conservation conducted under the supervision of Krzysztof Powidzki. Their theme remains differentiated and deeply symbolical. The great dining room contains religious scenes, probably by Karol Dankwart , an acclaimed painter of Swedish origin, showing the holy hermits Paul and Anthony being fed by a raven. A work by the same artist is the depiction (in a great hall on the ground floor) of four Platonic cardinal virtues: Moderation, Valour, Justice and Wisdom, presented as sitting young women. Quite possibly, Dankwart was also the author of a mythological scene in a chamber on the ground floor, featuring the competition between Apollo and Marcius- the considerable degree of the devastation of the original painting makes it impossible to establish the authorship. All the compositions could have been executed in about 1701, when Dankwart painted the newly erected Jesuit church in Poznań (today: the parish church). The polychromy in the alcove on the ground floor was probably completed in 1719; they represent the six planets which exert an impact on human life.
All the paintings are accompanied by a complex of excellent stucco work, ascribed to the workshop of Alberto Bianco, employed in the decoration of the aforementioned parish church and a Franciscan church. The stucco in question resembles decorations in Rydzyna Castle.
On the other hand, a depiction of a young witch, painted on the ceiling of a corner room, once adjoining the chapel, is totally unique from the viewpoint of iconography. The author showed a young girl, in the costume of a gentlewoman, witnessing the appearance of a devil - a portrayal of the victory of St. Anthony over the might of Satan. The cult of St. Anthony was extremely lively at the beginning of the eighteenth century, as testified by the erection of aFranciscan church in Poznań, with this particular patron saint; St. Anthony was also the personal patron of the son of Andrzej Radomicki, Jan Antoni, who probably after the death of his fathercommissioned the execution of this highly unusual scene (about 1726).

Magdalena Witwińska,
Polichromia dwóch Trójc w kościele p.w. św. Józefa we Wschowie, s. 264-279

Polychromy of two Holy Trinities in the church of St. Josephin Wschowa

The Observant Franciscan church in Wschowa, a picturesque historical town in southern Great Poland, contains a valuable Late Baroque polychromy of the interior. It was executed in 1745-1747 by three co-operating artists: Joachim Eggenfeldner, a Silesian guild master from nearby Głogów, and two monks of the aforementioned order, arrivals from Poznań - Walenty Żebrowski and Liboriusz Stanisławski. Recently (1996-1997), the polychromy, which totals some 1200 square meters, was subjected to extremely careful conservation (conducted by a team headed by Maria Kiepuszewska). The paintings were cleaned, fragments were reconstructed, and large parts covered in 1882 by a layer of repainting were disclosed. The retouching was performed by means of spots. All conservation was carried out thoroughly, working for more than ten hours daily for a period of 17months.
The polychromy is well documented in sources. The monastic chronicles of the Great Poland province contains a copy of a contract for its execution, signed with Eggenfeldner, and an iconographic description of the whole work, while the chronicle of the monastery records the realisation. An occasional print from 1747 describes the ceremony of the installation in the church of the painting of St. Peter Regalatus, indicating that the completion of the polychromy was synchronised with this event, which entailed also triumphal gates and other decorations. Pertinent references are to be found in paintings on some of the church walls, depicting floral festoons and illusionistic fabrics. Nonetheless, the main theme, presented on the nave ceiling of this single-nave church, is the mystical Marriage of St. Joseph and Mary. The bridegroom and the bride are accompanied by angelic musicians, brandishing an interesting group of Old Polish instruments, as well as by angelic choirs singing Sanctus, sanctus..., together with saints selected according to a key which it was possible to discover in the text of a certain sermon. The main scene was solved in a manner referring to a song of the St. Joseph Fraternity: Joseph, may you be praised by heavenly hosts! The polychromy is composed of several contextual motifs. The ceiling of the presbytery features the throne of the Holy Trinity, consisting of clouds and surrounded by nine angelic choirs. A sequence of gentry coats of arms above the windows is supported by angels, illustrating the custom of honouring the protectors and founders, whose group is rather numerous in this instance, and whose names are recorded in the monastic chronicle.
A particularly interesting problem as regards the iconography of the polychromy is the fact that it contains a rather late reflection of a new form of the cult of St. Joseph, devised at the end of the seventeenth century in a Cistercian abbey in Krzeszów by Abbot Bernard Rosa, mystic and author of theological works. The earthly supplementation of the Holy Trinity is the Creata Trinity, and hence the Holy Family. Both Trinities share the figure of Jesus. It is the motif of this second Trinity which we encounter upon several occasions in the nave paintings (Flight to Egypt, Adoration of the Shepherds, The Patrocinium of St. Joseph ). Its conception is expressed expressively by a lunette scene with a monk dressed in a Franciscan habit, kneeling before the Holy Family, suspended in air. St. Joseph presents the monk with a book entitled Joseph-Buch, and thus entrusts him with a certain task. Below, we see monastic buildings. Presumably, the depicted monk is supposed to implement the cult, and his person should be deciphered as the author of the contextual programme of the polychromy. Indubitably, this is Father Manswet Grabowski, the Great Poland provincial, whose signature is found on the mentioned contract as the commissioner of the Silesian painter, and the person who brought over the two monastic artists. Grabowski realised the idea of the two Holy Trinities, contained in Grüssauisches Joseph- -Buch , by means of the polychromy. Not by accident did the painting in question refer to the composition and contents of a copperplate by Michael Willmann, which, as afrontispiece, decorates the first edition (1694) of this work, propagating the cult of Joseph, Mary and Jesus as a Trinity. Here, however, the kneeling abbot hands the saint his work.
Today, the cleaned polychromy makes it possible to distinguish easily the range of the work performed by all three painters, who did not leave their signatures. Nevertheless, we may discover a discreet signature made by Żebrowski on the lower part of the canvas of The Deposition from the Cross (first half of the seventeenth century), featured in the main altar.
The technique applied in the ceiling paintings was the fresco, a thin layer (about 2 mm.) of dry plaster. The walls are painted in the tempera technique. The discernible so- called giornata of Brother Walenty are larger than those of Eggenfeldner. Żebrowski was an inferior draughtsman, but he solved the ornamental parts with a great sense of decorativeness. Despite all the draughtsmanship errors, and the conservative solutions applied in this spherical and dense composition, the impact of this panting remains irresistibly attractive and aesthetically powerful. Its harmony must have also left an imprint on the co-operation of the three artists, making it possible for a portrait of the two monastic painters, executed by Eggenfeldner, to be placed on the nave ceiling.

Rafał Plebański,
XVIII-wieczna rzeźba kamienna w Wielkopolsce, s. 280-295

Eighteenth-century Stone Sculpture in Great Poland

Stone sculpture in Great Poland during the height of the Baroque, its decline and the Rococo, still awaits a suitable monographic study. Its assorted connections with Silesian art, shown in this text, deserve to be discussed on a wider scale. The intensification (present in figural sculpture) of the cult of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary, spreading from Italy via Austria and Habsburg Silesia, was not accidental. The adaptation of the Bohemian cult of St.John Nepomucen, as well as formal imports and, predominately, the migration of Silesian artists to Great Poland, comprise firm evidence of a revival of artistic contacts with Silesia. In the domain of stone sculpture, those contacts became livelier in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The problem outlined in the presented article calls for a continuation, consisting of inventories of works, research concerning patronage, the range of the impact exerted by the artists and their workshops, and even studies cncerning material. The interest of researchers is stirredby cult statutes of the Immaculata, St. John Nepomucen or St.Lawrence as well as by stone architectonic sculpture and, predominantly, by increasingly present stone garden sculpture - a true novelty in the residences of the gentry of Great Poland. The foremost local patrons of stone sculpture were the Cistercians, especially the abbots, and the local magnate families: the Raczyńskis, the Mełżyńskis, and the Sułkowskis - creators of the most magnificent residence of the period and, simultaneously, owners of the Bolesławiec quarries. The history of sculptors working in Great Poland remains frequently unknown; we have slightly more information only about Augustyn Schöps, a versatile artist and the author of The Rape of Proserpine in the Poznań market square, and Wenzel Böhm, author of sculptures crowning the façade of the palace in Pawłowice.

Marek Chwistek,
Cmentarz protestancki we Wschowie, s. 296-303

The Protestant Cemetery in Wschowa

In 1604, the Wschowa Evangelical congregation was compelled to return a parish church, used since the mid-sixteenth century, to the Catholic parish. The same year, it adapted for cult purposes, two burgher houses situated within the walls of the Old Town. Unfortunately, the area around the ensuing church, located in densely developed urban space, lacked sufficient place for a traditional church cemetery. In this situation, the Protestants came to terms with the municipal authorities, and decided to establish a new necropolis outside the town walls (extra muros), in a suburban landed estate. This was the origin of a Christian cemetery constituting an autonomous whole, the first of its type to the east of the Odra river (1609). Its foundation broke with the almost thousand years-long tradition of locating cemeteries next to churches (ad sanctos et apud ecclesiam ). The only exception were mediaeval cemeteries of the Italian campo santo type, to whose aesthetic programme the Wschowa cemetery referred.
The Wschowa Old Town cemetery is invaluable testimony of the historical splendour of the town, and a document containing an enormous amount of information about the life of its residents in the course of more than three centuries. An area of 2,5 hectares, encircled by a wall, contains aconsiderable number of stone epitaphs, tombstones and cemetery buildings of assorted origin and stylistic features, from Late Renaissance to Third Reich. From the viewpoint of an historian of art, greatest value is represented by Manneristic and Baroque epitaphs; the majority of the 170 objects is well preserved. It is those monuments which are being conserved in the first place (15 objects). Installed in the cemetery walls and in chapels, they comprise complexes connected with burgher families of foremost significance for the history of the town.
From the moment of its origin, the cemetery was twice enlarged to the west. After the western wall was pulled down, the epitaphs located there were transferred to the newly built southern wall. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the cemetery was expanded by adding a Catholic part, in which a Classicistic funeral house was erected. In 1989- 1990, this building was thoroughly restored and adapted for exhibition purposes (Galeria Lapidarium). Equally careful restoration was applied in the case of the chapel of the Teschner family, and the epitaphs featured therein. The conservation of the whole cemetery wall, conducted this year, was financed by the budget of the commune.

Krzysztof Jodłowski,
Starodruk Wielkimi wsławiona cudami opisujący dziejecudownego obrazu Matki Boskiej z Szamotuł i łaski przy nim wyproszone - przyczynek do historii kultury religijnej dobybaroku w Wielkopolsce, s. 304-311

The Old Print Wielkimi wsławiona cudami (Celebrated forGreat Miracles), Describing the History of the Miraculous Likeness of Our Lady of Szamotuły and the Obtained Favours - a Contribution to the History of Baroque Religious Culturein Great Poland

The presented article is devoted to one of the old prints found in the collections of the Main Library at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (SD 3964 I). This book, issued in 1687 by Rev. Wojciech Laktański, a Poznań canon, deals with a small, seventeenth-century icon, to this day featured in the church of the Holy Virgin Mary and St.Stanisław the Bishop in Szamotuły. The old print in question contains acts of two commissions, which met in 1665 and 1666 upon the initiative of Stefan Wierzbowski, Bishop of Poznań, in order to decide whether the painting could be presented to the public as miraculous; the other document are accounts of the favours obtained by the faithful, who sought the help of Our Lady of Szamotuły in 1675, 1686 and 1687.
The old print constitutes the most important source for the recreation of the history of the Szamotuły painting from the time when it found itself in the Commonwealth. The original owner of the icon was a certain Ruthenian prince. During one of the wars waged by King Jan Kazimierz against Muscovy, the icon was seized by Aleksander Wolff, royal courtier and leaseholder of Szamotuły, who subsequently placed it in his castle chapel. One day, Wolff noticed bloody tears flowing down the face of the Madonna. News about the supernatural phenomenon rapidly reached the diocese. The circumstances of the miracle were examined by a special commission, which ordered the transference of the icon to the collegiate treasury. Yet another commission permitted a public display of the painting, which was installed in a specially built altar.
From that time, the cult of Our Lady of Szamotuły developed uninterruptedly, reaching its apogee at the turn of the seventeenth century. Cited accounts indicate that the supernatural events usually concerned healing. Faith in the miraculous power of the likeness and the associated forms of the cult - pilgrimages, processions, services, and offered vota - are typical for the general image of post-Reformation religiosity. The distinguishing feature of Szamotuły among other Marian sanctuaries in Great Poland is the untypical nature of the adored painting -a copy of the depiction of the Our Lady of Kazan, extremely popular in Rus’.

KRONIKA / CHRONICLE

Obiekty architektoniczne Wielkopolski wzniesionew 2 poł. XVII-XVIII w. - wpisane do rejestru zabytków(stan na 31 XII 1998) - opracował Tomasz Marzęta, s. 312-350

Prace konserwatorskie Krzysztofa Powidzkiego w barokowychzabytkach Wielkopolski - opracowała Karolina Prymas, s. 351-359

Aniela Sławska (1918-1997) - Anna Dobrzycka, s. 365-366