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'GOLGOTHA' BY JAN STYKA AT FOREST LAWN. ON THE LARGEST PAINTING IN THE WORLD AND ITS UNUSUAL HISTORY ('Golgota' Jana Styki w Forest Lawn. O najwiekszym obrazie swiata i jego niezwyklej historii)

100%

Miziolek J.

Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa

2008

vol. 62

issue 1(280)

50-60

The article discusses 'Golgotha' - an enormous painting by Jan Styka (1858-1925), considered to be the largest such composition in the world (ca 60 x 15 m). The canvas was executed in 1896 and despite its huge size, is an outstanding work. From 1904 it was featured in the United States, and for over sixty years has been the focal point of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Its characteristic features include an interesting iconography and a history as fascinating as it is dramatic. The first part of the article considers the artist and his life: studies in Vienna and Rome, the majority of important works executed in the last decade of the nineteenth century, collaboration on once famous panoramas (such as The Raclawice Panorama) and, finally, the Parisian period in his oeuvre. Styka won international acclaim, which allowed him to own a villa and a studio in Paris and a residence on Capri (Villa Quo Vadis). The author goes on to present the dramatic story of 'Golgotha', which after being exhibited in Warsaw, Kiev and Moscow, was to be featured in 1904 at the world's fair in St. Louis but never reached its destination. Attempts at transporting the canvas from New York to Paris soon encountered obstacles. Discouraged by clashes with customs officers Styka decided to leave the painting in America and never saw it again. In 1911 'Golgotha' was shown at the Chicago Opera House, and soon found itself in the storerooms of the Civic Opera Company in Chicago. Here, in 1943, rolled around a telegraph pole, it was discovered by Fred Hanson, an envoy of Hubert Eaton, the creator of Forest Lawn. After lengthy conservation carried out by the artist's son, Adam Styka, and his wife Wanda, and the construction of a suitable auditorium, the painting was unveiled on Good Friday 1951, to become the greatest highlight of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The canvass shows a scene sometimes described as the Crucifixion but de facto depicts a moment preceding that event. A longhaired and bearded Christ with an irregular nimbus around His head, and wearing a long white robe, stands upright, gazing steadfastly at the sky and the descending wide beams of light. A ray striking Him enhances the white colour of the robe, which is almost as bright as in the scene of the Transfiguration. A centurion near-by reads the verdict from a large tablet and with his right hand points at the Christ. Almost all the witnesses of the event, including the two semi-nude thieves, the Apostles, and the Madonna are motionless, the overall impression being that some of the gathered persons and the heavens were paying homage to the Condemned in white. This scene, so very different from many other versions of the Crucifixion, takes place against the background of a sprawling panorama of Jerusalem and environs. The painter, whose preparations included three months in the City of David, painstakingly recreated Golgotha, the city, the town walls and the Temple at the time of Jesus. His earlier compositions, inspired by Sienkiewicz's 'Quo vadis', served as comparative material and a context.

'FLAMMANS PRO RECTO'. SEVERAL REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE LAST MEMBERS OF THE LANCKORONSKI FAMILY, OR ON PATRIOTISM, EUROPEAN ARTISTIC CULTURE AND CLASSICAL TRADITION (Polish title - below)

100%

Miziolek J.

Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa

2009

vol. 63

issue 3(286)

90-109

(Title in Polish - 'Flammans pro recto'. Kilka mysli no ostatnich z rodu Lamckoronskich, czyli o patriotyzmie, europejskiej kulturze artystycznej i tradycji antyku'). In October 1994 and June 2000 a significant number of Italian paintings from the collection of Count Karol Lanckoronski (1848-1933) in Vienna were donated to the Royal Castles in Kraków and Warsaw. This generous gift was made by Count's daughter Karolina Lanckoronska (1898-2002), then the only surviving member of the family. The Warsaw Castle received Baroque and Neoclassical paintings whereas Renaissance paintings - including works by such artists as Simone Martini, Bernardo Daddi, Apollonio di Giovanni, Jacopo del Sellaio, Garofalo and Dosso Dossi went to Kraków. They depict, among others, Orpheus, Odysseus, Paris and Helen of Troy, Narcissus, Marcus Curcius, Horatius Cocles, the vestal Tuccia, Scipio Africanus, Vergil and Julius Caesar. Thus the rooms of the Kraków residence of the Polish kings, built in the first half of the 16th century by two Italian architects, Francesco Fiorentino (d. 1516) and Bartolomeo Berecci (d. 1536), were enhanced by the paintings of their compatriots. The Lanckoronski donation complements beautifully the all'antica and all'italiana 'aura' that exists in the Castle. It was on the Castle (or not far from it) that Filippo Buonaccorsi, known as Callimachus wrote a letter to his friend Marsilio Ficino calling him 'the new Orpheus', it was here that in 1515 and in 1522 a play was performed about Odysseus/Ulysses and Paris, and even earlier the song of the Sirens had been written about. In 1518 it was also here the King Sigismundus I married Bona Sforza. To mark the occasion of that famous wedding, Andrzej Krzycki wrote a charming verse, in which he describes Bona as 'radiating' the best characteristics of all the three goddesses known from the Judgement of Paris - Venus, Pallas Athena and Juno. The splendid and memorable gift of the last of the Lanckoronskis to the Royal Castle was indeed the crowning point of the many activities undertaken by Karol Lanckoronski such as the restoration and conservation of the buildings on the Wawel Castle Hill. In 1994, Karolina so wrote about her father: 'Together with a group of friends (...) he fought (...) at the beginning of this (the 20th) century a Homeric-like work to release the former residence of the Jagiellons from its use as Austrian barracks'. At the beginning of the 21st century, nearly 100 years after the Castle was rid of foreign armies (in 1905), the former residence of the Polish monarchs which had been ruined by the partitioning powers, once again emanates an atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, as in the 16th century, the Golden Age of Polish culture, and all thanks to the collection amassed in Vienna and the generosity of Karolina Lanckoronska.

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2 Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa

1 2009

1 2008

2 Miziolek J.

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'GOLGOTHA' BY JAN STYKA AT FOREST LAWN. ON THE LARGEST PAINTING IN THE WORLD AND ITS UNUSUAL HISTORY ('Golgota' Jana Styki w Forest Lawn. O najwiekszym obrazie swiata i jego niezwyklej historii)

'FLAMMANS PRO RECTO'. SEVERAL REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE LAST MEMBERS OF THE LANCKORONSKI FAMILY, OR ON PATRIOTISM, EUROPEAN ARTISTIC CULTURE AND CLASSICAL TRADITION (Polish title - below)