The Paintings in the Cloisters of the Dominican Friary in Cracow

• Authors: Kurzej Michal , Blaschke Kinga

Title variants

PL

Obrazy w krużganku klasztoru Dominikanów w Krakowie

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

The first series of paintings was executed by Tomasso Dolabella during the priorate of Fr. Erazm Koniuszowski. Around 1720 the huge paintings depicting scenes from the lives of saints were repainted or replaced with new ones by the Dominican painter Br. Kazimierz Cisowski. At the end of the 1880s they were repainted to varying degrees by Br. Angelik Drewaczyński. The paintings were shifted several times during conservation treatments they underwent, and now only eleven out of seventeen surviving canvases are located in the cloisters. During the last conservation treatment of the paintings, the paint layer from the first half of the eighteenth century was revealed. The iconography of the series seems to be without precedent. No graphic models could be found for the majority of compositions, and many of them do not appear in any other renderings. The paintings in the series can be divided into works representing martyrdoms, miracles and visions. It may be assumed that such a division was inspired by the configuration of the rosary, with its sorrowful, joyous and glorious mysteries. In three out of eleven paintings that have recently undergone conservation treatment, fragments of original paint layer by the hand of Dolabella were uncovered. Fragments exhibiting characteristics of seventeenth-century painting can also be identified in a few other works that so far have not been treated by conservators. According to documentary sources, however, it is this Venetian painter that should be considered the author of the entire iconographic programme which counts among the most interesting examples of his invention. Kazimierz Cisowski, an artist responsible for the paint layer revealed during the conservation treatment, was a Dominican lay brother who was professed in 1686 and died around 1730. It may be assumed that he had been a painter by profession still before he entered the order. He was able to convincingly render a human figure, often employing complicated and dynamic poses, although he did not avoid minor anatomical faults. He painted uniformed physiognomical types, but was eager to differentiate the colours and forms of the sharp, angular forms of draperies, usually swirling artfully and painted with broad areas of lit up or darkened colours. In his concise manner, he was only rarely concerned with details and the middle-ground figures were, more often than not, created with only a few apt brushstrokes. The extent of Drewaczyński s nineteenthcentury intervention varies from painting to painting, yet the artist always preserved the original subject and composition of the main scenes, which he tried to make better visible by eliminating secondary episodes in the background. He made the drawing more prominent, especially in the facial features which he idealised and detailed, emphasising their expressive qualities. The huge canvases depicting Dominican saints are an exceptional case of works painted in turn by three gifted artists with prominent personalities. Each of them created a work characteristic of his times, a testimony of the epoch, of significant artistic value. Regrettably, it was not possible to fully identify the bottommost layer, nor to preserve the uppermost part of the painting, yet the uncovered work of Cisowski should be considered as the most interesting example of a cycle of paintings from the first half of the eighteenth century in Cracow. Another anonymous cycle of paintings in the cloister, made up of bishops' portraits, from 1711, is also unique as far as its arrangement is concerned. The bishops were shown, for the most part, with their usual attributes, in scarcely diversified, schematic poses. Both painting cycles are a pictorial representation of the commemoration culture^ current in the Order of Preachers, and similar to the books by Abraham Bzowski, Paweł Ruszel and Michał Siejkowski. The cloister walks were naturally destined to be a place of remembrance about eminent members of the order, both saintly, blessed as well as those whose cult had not been officially sanctioned yet.

• Publisher: Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Institute of History of Art
• Journal: Modus. Prace z historii sztuki
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 15
• Pages: 89-117

Contributors

author

Kurzej Michal

• Instytut Historii Sztuki UJ

author

Blaschke Kinga

• Kraków