O obrazach, skrzynce cechowej i „sztukach towarzyskich”. Uwagi o kształceniu artystycznym w Toruniu i Gdańsku na marginesie działalności Christiana Ernsta Ulricha, osiemnastowiecznego malarza w Toruniu

• Authors: Anna Mosingiewicz , Emanuel Okoń

Title variants

EN

On pictures, guild box and “social arts”. Remarks about artistic education in Toruń and Danzig and the activity of Toruń’s 18th century painter Christian Ernst Ulrich

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article was inspired by the pioneering work of Professor Zygmunt Ważbiński (died May 7, 2009) concerning journeymen’s drawings and academic models in guild education in Torun, and by a huge picture from a church in Ostromecko presenting the scene of Crucifixion. During restoration works in 2005 the painter’s signature and the date of the painting’s creation (1745) were found, which led to associating the painting with the activity of Christian Ernst Ulrich, guild painter active in the years 1725–1775 in Torun. He arrived from Jelgava in Courland. This discovery resulted in the attempt to systematize information about him and his artistic activity. Source queries allowed us to verify and enrich our knowledge. There are two artefacts important to the history of the 13th century artistic culture and connected with C. E. Ulrich: a guild box of painters and sculptors and the so-called “social arts” – drawings handed in at the end of apprenticeship when an apprentice was becoming a journeyman or a companion. On the inner side of the guild box’s lid and in the note at the beginning of the book of drawings there is the same date: January 5, 1733 – the day of the foundation. The analysis of the function, technique and rich sculpting-painting decoration of Torun’s box revealed its well-thought-out ideological program. For its founders 6 masters of the guild, whose names can be found on the inner part of the lid – was not only the most important guild equipment, but also the manifestation of a certain message, the sign of prestige and aspiration. The decoration emphasises the association of Torun’s two artistic trades having common aims and acting under the aegis of Minerva within one corporation. Torun’s “social arts” constitute a group of drawings of journeymen from the years 1727–1846 (the National Archive in Torun). They were for the first time compared with similar drawings from the group of 87 “social arts” from the years 1708–1823 from the Danzig guild of painters (at present in the National Museum in Danzig). Comparing apprentices from both towns of Royal Prussia in the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the 18th century gave general information about the strength of guilds, leading to a conclusion about the weakness of Torun’s guild and its smaller attractiveness for apprentices and journeymen. The diagnosis is confirmed by drawings, which re ect the level of artistic education at that time. It did not provide apprentices with the basics of art. However, it promoted acknowledged academic models and motifs, which were taken from different sources: mainly from graphic models available in albums (G. de Lairesse, J. de Bisschop, F. Perrier), or in the form of individual engravings of Dutch engravers (H. Goltzius, J. Glauber, J. Matham, J. Muller, C. van Dalen), French engravers (G. Rousselet) and Danzig’s engravers (J. Falck). The analysis of selected drawings from Torun and Danzig shows that in both places the same sources of inspiration were used. When the same model was used by apprentices of both towns, Danzig’s drawings are usually older, which may suggest that the artistic activity was transferred from Danzig – a stronger artistic town – to Torun. Personal contacts (for example C. J. Hoffers or B. Grübnau) played a great role here as well as the influx of reproduction engravings, which constituted a priceless source of knowledge and models in the process of guild artistic education. It was obtained thanks to the intense activity of the library-publishing movement, and various fairs. Nonetheless, neither the above-mentioned phenomena nor the attempt to reorganize education in Torun’s guild in 1733 prevented the collapse of local art in the second half of the 18th century.

• Publisher: Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu
• Journal: Zapiski Historyczne
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 75
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 31-64

Contributors

author

Anna Mosingiewicz

• Instytut Zabytkoznawstwa i Konserwatorstwa Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika

author

Emanuel Okoń