Stanisław Witkiewicz
{{short description|Polish artist, writer and architect}}
{{for|his son, the writer who lived 1885–1939|Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz}}
{{more citations needed|date=February 2010}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Stanisław Witkiewicz
| image = MalczewskiJacek.1897.PortretStanislawaWitkiewicza.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Stanisław Witkiewicz. Portrait by Jacek Malczewski, 1897, National Museum, Kraków.
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1851|5|8|df=y}}
| birth_place = Pašiaušė, Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania)
| death_date = {{dda|1915|9|5|1851|05|08|df=y}}
| death_place = Lovran, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia)
| nationality =
| spouse = Maria Pietrzkiewicz
| children = Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
| field = Painting, architecture
| training = {{Plainlist|
}}
| style = Zakopane Style
| works =
| patrons =
| influenced by =
| influenced =
}}
Stanisław Witkiewicz ({{langx|lt|Stanislovas Vitkevičius}}; 8 May 1851 – 5 September 1915) was a Polish{{Cite book |last=Szymanowicz |first=Maciej |url=https://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/assets/essays/Szymanowicz.pdf |title=In the Private Sphere: The Photographic Work of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz |date=2014 |pages=7}} painter, art theoretician, and amateur architect, known for his creation of "Zakopane Style".{{cite book |last1=Guile |first1=Carolyn C.|chapter=Circulations: Early Modern Architecture in the Polish-Lithuanian Borderland |editor1-last=DaCosta Kaufmann |editor1-first=Thomas |editor2-last=Dossin |editor2-first=Catherine |editor3-last=Joyeux-Prunel |editor3-first=Béatrice |title=Circulations in the Global History of Art |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1472454560 |page=89}}{{cite journal |last1=Crowley |first1=David |title=The Uses of Peasant Design in Austria-Hungary in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries |journal=Studies in the Decorative Arts |date=Spring 1995 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=9–11, 19 |publisher=University of Chicago Press|doi=10.1086/studdecoarts.2.2.40662538 |s2cid=163455295 }}
Life
Witkiewicz was born in the Samogitian village of Pašiaušė ({{Langx|pl|Poszawsze}}),{{cite web |last1=Kossowska |first1=Irena |title=Stanisław Witkiewicz |url=https://culture.pl/en/artist/stanislaw-witkiewicz |website=culture.pl |publisher=Adam Mickiewicz Institute|access-date=23 April 2019}} present-day Lithuania, ruled at the time by the Russian Empire. His parents were Ignacy and Elwira Witkiewicz.{{Cite web |last=Minakowski |first=J. M. |title=Stanisław Witkiewicz |url=https://wielcy.pl/wgm/?m=NG&t=PN&n=sw.93785 |access-date=2024-12-14 |website=wielcy.pl}} Elwira came from a wealthy Szemiot family and grew up in a palace in Diktariškiai.{{Sfn|Budzyńska|2022|p=18}}
Ignacy Witkiewicz at the age of 17 was a participant in the November Uprising, and after it ended he settled on the family estate and took up agriculture.{{Sfn|Piasecki|1983|p=24}} The legend of his brother Jan Prosper, sentenced to long-term military service for his patriotic activities at school age, was alive in the family. In the Russian army, he made a career as a researcher of Central Asia and a diplomat, and in the family tradition was considered a “Polish Wallenrod,” seeking to provoke a Russian-British conflict.{{Sfn|Witkiewicz-Schiele|2016|p=22}}{{Sfn|Piasecki|1983|p=23}} Elwira's brother was Franciszek Szemiot, a commander in the November Uprising, then traveling the world looking for opportunities to fight for a free Poland, he was friends with Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, the latter dedicated a poem to him.{{Sfn|Budzyńska|2022|p=18}} The memory of heroic family members influenced the patriotic atmosphere of the household.{{Sfn|Budzyńska|2022|p=18}}
Ignacy and Elwira had twelve children, the first daughter Elwira was born in 1840, followed by Angelika, Wiktor, Anna, Barbara, Jan, Ignacy, Stanisław, Maria, Aniela and Eugenia, born in 1856. Three daughters, Angelika, Anna and Justyna died in childhood.{{Sfn|Budzyńska|2022|p=19}}
The Witkiewicz family, especially Elwira, sought to raise the consciousness of the people, adhering to democratic views similar to those preached by Szymon Konarski's Association of the Polish People.{{Sfn|Piasecki|1983|p=28}} Elwira founded a hospital for peasants in Pašiaušė and a school for their children, where her eldest daughter taught them in Polish and Lithuanian. Lithuanian was also taught to all the Witkiewicz children.{{Sfn|Piasecki|1983|p=28}}{{Sfn|Budzyńska|2022|p=19-20}}
As an adolescent, he spent several years in Siberian Tomsk, where his parents and two older siblings were exiled for their support of the January Uprising. He was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg (1868–1871) and furthered his education in Munich (1872–1875). During his stay in Munich, he befriended painters Aleksander Gierymski, Józef Chełmoński and Henryk Siemiradzki.
In 1875, he moved to Warsaw and set up a painting workshop in the laundry at the Hotel Europejski. In 1884, he married Maria Pietrzkiewicz. The pair had a son, Stanisław Ignacy. The son's godmother was the internationally famous actress Helena Modjeska, whom the elder Witkiewicz in 1876 had nearly accompanied to California in the United States.
In 1884–1887, Witkiewicz worked as the artistic director of "Wędrowiec" weekly, for which he wrote a series of articles concerning the values of a work of art and the role of art critics (published in book form under the title "Painting and criticism among us", Sztuka i krytyka u nas, in 1891 and 1899). In 1887, he held the same position in "Kłosy" magazine.{{cite book |last1=Nowakowska |first1=Wanda |title=Stanisław Witkiewicz, teoretyk sztuki |date=1970 |publisher=Ossolineum |page=18 |language=pl}}
File:Villa Konstantynówka in Zakopane, place of stay of Joseph Conrad in 1914.PNG stayed there in 1914]]
In 1886, he visited Zakopane for the first time. He developed a fascination with the Tatra Mountains, the Podhale highlanders and their vernacular traditions. His ambition became to create a Polish national style based on the highlanders' art, which he considered quintessentially Polish.{{cite journal |last1=Edyta Barucka |title=Redefining Polishness: The Revival of Crafts in Galicia around 1900 |journal=Acta Slavica Iaponica |date=2010 |volume=28 |pages=83, 86}}{{cite book |last1=Cavanaugh |first1=Jan |title=Out Looking In: Early Modern Polish Art, 1890-1918 |date=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0520211902 |page=169}}
He formulated the Zakopane Style (styl zakopiański) (also known as Witkiewicz Style (styl witkiewiczowski)) in architecture,See picture in Polish article on styl zakopiański in which he designed homes and interiors for well-off, artistically-minded Poles. He was strongly associated with Zakopane and promoted it in the art community.
Witkiewicz had strong views against formal education:
"School is completely at odds with the psychological make-up of human beings".He applied this principle in his son's upbringing and was disappointed when the 20-year-old Witkacy chose to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
In 1908, suffering from tuberculosis, the elder Witkiewicz left his family in Zakopane and relocated to Lovran, a fashionable resort in what was then Austria-Hungary, which today is in Croatia. He died there in 1915.
His first monographic art exhibition was staged in Zachęta Fine Arts Society in 1927. His son, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, became a famous painter, playwright, novelist and philosopher, also known (from the conflation of his surname and middle name) by the pseudonym "Witkacy."
Selected publications
- Odpowiedź na ankietę Policja a sztuka. Policja a sztuka (Response to the Survey The Police and Art) (1902), Krytyka IV: 275–280{{Cite journal |last1=Kuczkowski |first1=Bartłomiej |last2=Radowska-Lisak |first2=Mirosława |date=2018-03-29 |title=Dwa aforyzmy – autografy Stanisława Witkiewicza |url=https://apcz.umk.pl/LC/article/view/LC.2018.008 |journal=Litteraria Copernicana |volume=25 |language=pl |issue=1(25)/ |pages=125–131 |doi=10.12775/LC.2018.008 |issn=2392-1617|doi-access=free }}
- Chrześcijaństwo i katechizm. O nauce religii w szkołach galicyjskich (Christianity and the Catechism. About the Teaching of Religion in Galician Schools) (1904),
- Wallenrodyzm czy znikczemnienie (Wallenrodism or Becoming Ignoble) (published in Kultura Polski 1917, a fragment of the work Studium o duszy polskiej po 1863 roku (A Study of the Polish Soul after 1863),
- Przełom (Turning Point),
- Życie, etyka i rewolucja (Life, Ethics and Revolution),
- Na przełęczy. Wrażenia i obrazy z Tatr (On the Mountain Pass. Impressions and images from the Tatras) (1891, first published in Tygodnik Illustrowany 1889–1890),
- Po latach (Years Later) (1905),
- Z Tatr (From the Tatras) (1907),
- Monographs: Juliusz Kossak (1900), Aleksander Gierymski (1903), Matejko (1908).
Selected paintings
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Autumn Pasturage - MNK II-a-397 - National Museum Kraków.jpg|Autumn Pasturage, National Museum, Kraków
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Noc ukraińska 1895.jpg|Ukrainian night, National Museum, Kraków
File:Witkiewicz Baltic in Palanga.jpg|On the Baltic at Palanga, National Museum, Warsaw
File:Owce we mgle.jpg|Sheep in the Mist
File:20 witkiewicz.jpg|Siberian Troika
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Czarny Staw (The Blake Lake) – Blizzard - MNK II-a-491 - National Museum Kraków.jpg|Black Pond
File:Krokusy.jpg|Crocuses with snowy mountains in the background, National Museum, Kraków
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Apple-Trees in Bloom - MNK II-a-395 - National Museum Kraków.jpg|Apple Trees in Bloom, National Museum, Kraków
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Wiosenny krajobraz ze stawem 1902.jpg|Spring landscape with a pond, National Museum, Kraków
File:Witkiewicz Narrow gate.jpg|Narrow gate, National Museum, Warsaw
File:Stanisław Witkiewicz - Pasture land - MP 100 - National Museum in Warsaw.jpg|Pasture land, National Museum, Warsaw
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book |last=Budzyńska |first=Natalia |title=Witkiewicz, ojciec Witkacego |date=2022 |location=Kraków |language=pl |trans-title=Witkiewicz, father of Witkacy}}
- {{Cite book |last=Piasecki |first=Zdzisław |title=Stanisław Witkiewicz. Młodość i wczesny dorobek artysty |date=1983 |location=Warsaw-Wrocław |language=pl}}
- {{Cite book |last=Witkiewicz-Schiele |first=Elżbieta |title=Nie tylko Witkiewiczowie |publisher=Towarzystwo Muzeum Tatrzańskiego im. Dra Tytusa Chałubińskiego w Zakopanem |year=2016 |location=Zakopane |language=pl}}
External links
{{commons category|Stanisław Witkiewicz (1851-1915)}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Stanisław Witkiewicz |sopt=w}}
- {{OL author}}
- [http://culture.pl/en/artist/stanislaw-witkiewicz Stanisław Witkiewicz] at Culture.pl
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Witkiewicz, Stanislaw}}
Category:People from Kelmė District Municipality
Category:People from Kovno Governorate
Category:Painters from the Russian Empire
Category:20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Category:19th-century Polish painters
Category:19th-century Polish male artists
Category:20th-century Polish painters
Category:20th-century Polish male artists
Category:19th-century Polish architects
Category:People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent
Category:Tuberculosis deaths in Austria-Hungary