Badania konserwatorskie obrazu Madonny z kościoła św. Jakuba w Toruniu

• Authors: Michałowski Ziemowit , Karłowska-Kamzowa Alicja

Title variants

EN

CONSERVATION STUDIES ON THE PAINTING OF MADONNA FROM ST JACOB’S CHURCH IN TORUŃ

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Part I. Workshop Problems The painting is done in distemper and oil, on an oak board. An ovalshaped format is the result o f the former remaking. Numerous features of the technical construction (such as kind of the wood used for underpainting, chalk and glue mortar, local oil grounding with Cremnitz white and a multi-layer moulding of the flesh tints) place the object in an East European school. The painting’s rendering shows analogies to other Pomeranian pictures from 1390— 1450. The latest element of the school is the mode o f painting a blue robe by means of ultramarine, known in Polish painting from the end o f the first half o f the 15th century. A historic interpretation of the results of technological studies speaks for the creation o f the picture in East Pomerania in the fourth decade of the 15th century, in the studio with well-developed traditions in painting craftsmanship. Part II. Historic and Artistic Problems As far as iconographie and compositional rendering o f the painting is concerned, this is a replica of the Świętowidzka Madonna in Prague, some elements o f which were adopted (like the arrangement o f the right hand and the representation o f St Mary’s fingers plunged into the body o f the Child). However, apart from that he following motifs patterned after figures of beautiful Madonnas were introduced: the characteristics and arrangement o f Christ’s body, a form of buttoning the coat and uncovering o f St Mary’s neck as well as the expression o f her face (en face), encircled with numerous festoons of maforium. The execution of part o f her hair and ears is known from Netherlandian and Lower Rhenish paintings. Still, the painting acquired values different from the originals. Mary, with a delicate and lyrical face, is staring at the looker-on; she is in no contact with the Child, who touches her chin with his hand in a gesture well-known from Italian paintings. The picture is not a realistic image o f motherhood shown in numerous Franco- Flemmish and Netherlandian paintings devoted to that theme. Neither is there any reference to a symbolic representation o f Mary as another Eve and Christ as another Adam, like in figures of beautiful Madonnas. The crowned Mary presents Christ. A timeless rendering has an emotional expression, which makes easier a spiritual contact o f the viewer with a sacral reality o f the painting, the subject of which is Mary. Using elements of a diversified genesis the author created a unique work of art. It must have been a local artist, because this kind of the synthesis o f artistic values coming from the south and west can be found more frequently in wall and table paintings o f that region. The presence o f a Netherlandian factor shows that most probably the object was created in ca 1440. It provides the proof o f the permanent fascination in the discussed region with forms o f a beautiful style.

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1980
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 232-244

Dates

published

1980

Contributors

author

Michałowski Ziemowit

• mgr, Instytut Zabytkoznawstwa i Konserwatorstwa UMK w Toruniu

author

Karłowska-Kamzowa Alicja

• doc. dr, Instytut Historii Sztuki U AM w Poznaniu

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