- Tytuł:
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Warszawscy rzeźbiarze czasów saskich w roli projektantów
Warsaw Sculptors of the Saxon Times as Designers - Autorzy:
- Sito, Jakub
- Powiązania:
- https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/16025932.pdf
- Data publikacji:
- 2019
- Wydawca:
- Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
- Tematy:
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Bartłomiej Michał Bernatowicz
Johann Georg Plersch
Johann Sigmund Deybel
Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann
Johann Chrisostom Redtler
Carl Antoni Bay
rzeźbiarze warszawscy XVII-XVIII w.
Warsaw Sculptors of the Saxon Times - Opis:
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Artykuł dotyczy projektowych kompetencji rzeźbiarzy warszawskich. Z uwagi na ogromne straty w materiale źródłowym, obserwacje autora oparte są na danych wyrywkowych. Do poszczególnych artystów odnoszą się one w sposób niejednorodny. W przypadku Plerscha mamy do czynienia z największą liczbą zachowanych projektów rysunkowych, zaś w odniesieniu do Redtlera zachowała się największa liczba wzmianek archiwalnych. To co wszakże uderza w sposób nie budzący wątpliwości, to ścisła współpraca warszawskich rzeźbiarzy z architektami, nierzadko przybierająca postać swoistych spółek architektoniczno-rzeźbiarskich. Dodajmy iż chodzi tu o architektów wybitnych, wyróżniających się w skali polskiej, a nawet środkowoeuropejskiej, jak Carlo Antonio Bay, Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann, Johann Sigmund Deybel czy Jakub Fontana, pozostających w służbie dworu królewskiego i wielkich panów, a także stołecznych domów zakonnych, najczęściej silnie zależnych od magnaterii. Architekci i rzeźbiarze aktywni na stołecznych placach budów byli zmuszeni do ścisłej kooperacji. W Warszawie odmiennie też niż w większości ośrodków polskich to właśnie architekci z zasady odpowiadali za projekty elementów rzeźbiarskich, często do najmniejszego szczegółu, również w dziedzinach tradycyjnie uznawanych za domenę rzeźbiarzy, jak np. ołtarze. Z drugiej strony twórcy dłuta, zwłaszcza ci wybitni, a takich tu nie brakowało, traktowani byli przez architektów w znacznie większym stopniu niż gdzie indziej w sposób partnerski.
One of the main aspects of the activity of a Baroque sculptor’s workshop was the design of an art piece in which sculpture was of major importance, both as far as a human figure or figural groups were concerned, and in the case of architectural framings, e.g. a portal, tympanum, wall, gate, altar, tomb, pulpit, and other sacral and secular works. The departure point for every sculpture piece was essentially either a two- or a three-dimensional model approved by the client. The client commissioning a definite piece could either call a competition for the design or address several artists, asking them to prepare such a design. Cases are known of several sculptors bidding for the same order and submitting both drawn models and a 3-D-modelletta. Sculptors like Gianlorenzo Bernini, Alessandro Algardi, François Duquesnoy, Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoffa, Johann Baptist Straub, Raffael Donner, or Baltasar Permoser designed so-called small architecture/ elements of bigger edifices or free-standing objects: altars, tombs, epitaphs, and even fragments of architecture, e.g. portals, balustrades, etc. The sculptor-designers were on the one hand renowned artists, permanently employed at royal and aristocratic courts, by higher clergy and monasteries, yet on the other hand active in the cultural peripheries where they would not be confronted by important competition of architects and stonemasons. However, the designing of sculpture works was not only and exclusively the domain of their direct creators. Designs of prestigious works were often commissioned from architects: e.g. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Lodovico Burnacini, or from painters: Charles Le Brun or Michael Willman. Sculptors themselves, such as Gianlorenz Bernini, Alessandro Algardi, François Duquesnoy, Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoff, Johann Baptist Straub, Raffael Donner, or Baltasar Permoser designed altars, epitaphs or garden statues. The question of Baroque sculptors participating in designing art pieces, including the figures they would later sculpt, has not been a subject of separate studies in Polish literature. Only minor mentions on the topic have been included in broader studies, monographs on respective sculptors, as well as architects, in synthetic analyses of respective artistic centres, or studies on artistic patronage. These observations have focused mainly on the Warsaw circles, which should not be surprising, since they have been relatively well identified (as compared to other centres of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), and had a relatively high output. It is Bartłomiej Michał Bernatowicz (d. 1730) that can be ranked among the Warsaw sculptor-designers; he was active in the second and third decades of the century, running a flourishing and popular studio, or more appropriately said, a sculpting enterprise responsible for the majority of the Warsaw output from ca 1715 to 1730. He executed sculpting jobs, mainly altars, pulpits, and tombs for Warsaw convent churches: of the Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Paulites, Piarists, Trinitarians, and others. It is known that independent designs were created in that workshop (e.g. Kodeń Church high altar); furthermore, Bernatowicz cooperated with Carl Antoni Bay, the most outstanding Warsaw architect of the first four decades of the 18th century; coming originally from northern Italy, and educated in Rome in ca 1700, he was a student of Andrea Pozzo. He cooperated with the latter working on the tomb of Cardinal Michał Radziejowski (1719- 21), and was responsible for the design of the figure of the deceased. However, the major personality among Warsaw sculptors active during the reign of the Saxon House was Johann Georg Plersch, from ca 1735 head of the large royal studio. He contributed to the external and internal sculpture decoration of the first edifices in the capital: the Royal Castle, the Saxon Palace, a substantial part of the newly created and modernized older magnate palaces, garden ensembles or churches. The prominent position of Plersch resulted from his cooperation with the most illustrious Warsaw architects of the Saxon era, mainly royal, meaning Johann Sigmund Deybel and Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann. The style of their design closely echoing the aesthetics of French Neo-Classicism with Rococo elements was characterized by restraint and certain rigorism, underpinned with subtlety. The silhouette effect of those palaces was cocreated by a meticulously arranged, yet modest, but tasteful sculpture decoration. Sculpture accents focused at the central composition knots: on mansard roofs, on attics, either full or with balustrade, with a line of statues or sculpture groups, on external stairs, gate ensembles, or walls. Educated mainly on Roman patterns and the Prague Baroque sculpture, thus within the circle of a completely different tradition, Plersch quickly adjusted to the needs of sumptuousness expressed in Warsaw’s palace architecture and the circle of its impact. Interestingly, the design sections containing figural decoration were drawn by Pöppelmann taking into account Plersch’s dynamic sculpting manner, clearly ‘ready-made for his chisel’. From the 1740s, Plersch began cooperating with Jakub Fontana, Warsaw’s architect of Italian descent. What stands out among the Warsaw architectural works designed by Fontana and decorated by Plersch are the following: the spectacular extension of the Bieliński Palace; the façade of the Church of the Holy Cross with a sumptuous forecourt for coaches; the Rococo fragments of the façade and interior of the Church of the Nuns of the Visitation; and last but not least, the interior of the new Deputies’ Chamber in the Warsaw Royal Castle. Furthermore, Plersch may have contributed to the planned construction of the Piarist Collegium Nobilium. Educated in Europe (he had made an Italian and French educational trip), Fontana formed his own unique style, combining elements of Italian High and Late Baroque as well as French Rococo, with a continuously lingering classical component. This style appealed greatly to the background and sensitivity of his regular partner that Plersch was. Both shared Rome-based education and esteem for the tradition of the Seicento art, particularly in its lively expressive variant from the latter half of the 17th century. Both eagerly made references to Bernini and his followers, with Plersch less tempted to classicize, although he remained capable of yielding to the requirements of the clients and the architect in this respect. In the course of the Fontana – Plersch cooperation respective architect’s and sculptor’s contribution was not clearly discernible. Some of the smaller architectural pieces, or their fragments, were designed by the sculptor himself, who used, however, the style vocabularium of Fontana. Such was the case with the design of the statue of St John of Nepomuk at Trzech Krzyży Square, or the loggia balconies in the Church of the Holly Cross. Even in the designs of the lateral altars in the Saxon Chapel, designed essentially under C.F.Pöppelmann, Plersch used Fontana’s language of forms. As a designer in the strict meaning of the term, Plersch is mentioned in 1746 in the description of the execution of the supraporte over the portal to the sacristy in the Collegiate Church of St John, in the design drawings of the high altar in the Paulinite Church in Leśna, or in the contracts to execute the loggias of the Church of the Holy Cross. The famous epitaph of Jan Tarło from the Piarist Church was ‘rendered with Plersch’s exquisite art in harmony with his mastery’, which may mean at least that he participated in its designing (next to Jakub Fontana). Another, next to Plersch, most proliferous Warsaw sculptor of the Rococo period was Johann Chrisostom Redtler who came from the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy, most likely Austria. He was very well acquainted with the art of Vienna, not only sculpture, but also small-sized architectural pieces, which is testified to by his later creative cooperation with Warsaw architects, mainly Jakub Fontana. The sculptor had this unusual capacity of adapting to the requirements of the architect, and ruthlessly subduing his own imagination to the requirements of the architectural composition. Redtler was inspired not only by single sculptures or sculpture groups from Vienna, but also architecture segments connected with them: galleries, attics, portals, porticos, stairs, gates, or fences. As seen against the records, Redtler seems to have been an artist of some degree of independence, author of two- and three-dimensional models of sculptures as well as of architectural detail. The designing skills of the sculptor are best testified to by fragments of the correspondents with his main customers: Hetman Branicki and General of Lithuanian Artillery Potocki. They are also confirmed by his very works, mainly the detail of the Potocki Palace in Radzyń, the Branicki Palace in Białystok, or the Brühl Palace in Warsaw. Moreover, Redtler designed architectural details, and even consulted major construction designs; on some occasions, he altered works of other sculptors following his own design. The latter was the case in the decoration of the attics and gables in the Branicki Palace in Warsaw; its elements were imported from Gdansk. Bearing in mind ample losses in the source materials, the above observations related to designing competences of Warsaw sculptors were for obvious reasons based on fragmented data. These are not found homogenously for respective artists. In the event of Plersch we deal with the largest number of drawing designs, while for Redtler what has been preserved is the biggest number of archival mentions, yet it seems quite obvious that these are all but a fraction of the original records. What strikes, however, with indisputable certainty is the close cooperation that Warsaw sculptors had with architects, frequently taking on the form of a peculiar architectural joint venture. Those architects boasting a well-shaped creative personality and a clear artistic attitude rooted in he world of European models submitted attractive offers, well appreciated in the Warsaw market. Their essential element was high-quality sculpture serving as component of both interior furnishing and décor, as well as richness of exterior decoration. Warsaw sculptors, particularly the most talented ones, often adopted that design language of their ‘partners’ – architects, and also absorbed the artistic and intellectual attitude they presented. They would design first of all those fragments of the buildings that were most strictly connected with sculpture: portals, niches, attics, supraportes, and in sacral architecture altars, pulpits, tombs, or epitaphs. When wishing to have lower-scale pieces and lower-profile projects, clients would often just turn to them directly, without the need to involve all the instrumentation of the largest Warsaw builders. Playing the role of independent artists, to the extent of occasionally being called ‘architects’, as was in the case of Plersch when he was designing the supraporte for the Warsaw Collegiate Church, Warsaw sculptors made efforts to dignifiedly represent their ‘patrons’ in the artis inventionis sphere. - Źródło:
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Biuletyn Historii Sztuki; 2019, 81, 3; 355-388
0006-3967
2719-4612 - Pojawia się w:
- Biuletyn Historii Sztuki
- Dostawca treści:
- Biblioteka Nauki
Artykuł