Wyspiański enrolled in the Department of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University in 1887.
Gallery of Stanisław Wyspiański
Krakow, Poland
Wyspiański had attended the School of Fine Arts (now Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts) since 1887. Since 1906 he had held the post of a professor of the Academy.
Career
Gallery of Stanisław Wyspiański
Krakow, Poland
Wyspiański had attended the School of Fine Arts (now Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts) since 1887. Since 1906 he had held the post of a professor of the Academy.
Wyspiański had attended the School of Fine Arts (now Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts) since 1887. Since 1906 he had held the post of a professor of the Academy.
Stanisław Mateusz Ignacy Wyspiański was a Polish playwright, artist, and poet. He represented the art movements of Symbolism, Young Poland, and Art Nouveau. Wyspiański was a prominent member of the Young Poland movement. Unofficially, he came to be known as the Fourth Polish Bard, in addition to the earlier three, including Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, and Zygmunt Krasiński.
Background
Wyspiański was born in Kraków, Austrian Poland (now part of Poland), on January 15, 1869. He was the son of Franciszek Wyspiański and Maria Rogowska. His father was a sculptor and had an atelier at the foot of the Wawel Hill. Stanisław Wyspiański's mother died of tuberculosis in 1876. Because of problems with alcohol, Stanisław's father could not fulfill his parental responsibilities. So, Stanisław was adopted by his aunt Joanna Stankiewiczowa and her husband Kazimierz. They belonged to a bourgeois intellectual class.
Education
In the house of his aunt Joanna Stankiewiczowa, Stanisław Wyspiański got acquainted with painter Jan Matejko, who was their frequent visitor. Matejko soon recognized the boy's artistic talent and gave him his first artistic guidance.
Wyspiański attended St. Anne's Gymnasium. Among his schoolmates were Jozef Mehoffer, Lucjan Rydel, Stanislaw Estreicher; all of them played important roles in Kraków's cultural life. The instruction was bilingual, German and Polish, so the students were thoroughly versed in German language, literature, and culture. St. Anne's Gymnasium also equipped its pupils with a thorough knowledge of antiquity. As a result, antique motifs would always be present in Wyspiański's work.
As a student, he took particular interest in art and literature. According to his aunt, a young Stanisław portrayed small cottages, plants, animals, armors and decorations. Wyspiański also created aninterpretation of Matejko's painting Stefan Batory pod Pskowem (Bathory at Pskov).
Wyspiański enrolled in the Department of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University in 1887, and in the School of Fine Arts (now Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts). There he studied painting under the supervision of Jan Matejko. As a student, he and his colleagues were involved in the renovation of Mariacki Church (Basilica of Saint Mary), and, during his summer travels across the Galicia and Kielce regions, he helped develop a register of objects from the past. Wyspiański's most notable contribution was the discovery of a fifteenth-century wooden statue of the Mother of God in the village of Kruzlowa. Now it is kept at the Krakow National Museum and called the Madonna of Kruzlowa.
Wyspiański travelled abroad in 1890, visiting Vienna, Venice, Padua, Verona, Milan, Como, Basel, stopping for a while in Paris. His stay in France is regarded to have been a major point in his artistic life. Having visited the cathedral of Saint-Denis, he went to the famous Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Laon, Reims, Strasbourg, and then the Roman cathedrals, down to Nuremberg. In France he got acquainted with Paul Gauguin. Together they visited art museums, where Wyspiański was charmed by the beauty of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes's paintings.
He returned to Poland via a number of German towns, watching productions of plays by Goethe, Weber, Wagner, and Shakespeare. He wrote detailed letters to his friends, which together with the "Notatnik z podróży po Francji" [Notes on a Trip to France] were to become source material for his (unpublished) study of the French cathedrals.
In May 1891 he returned to France, travelling across Austria and Switzerland. There he started to paint in one of the Parisian ateliers within the Colarossi Academy. He loved the productions at Comédie Française, and frequented other theatres, too. Besides painting, he started to write dramas and opera librettos, addressing historical and mythological themes seen from the perspective of the end of the century. His studies abroad introduced him to the latest aesthetic trends, including the modern understanding of applied art and the diverse approaches of European theatre.
As a painter, he most frequently used soft pastel techniques. His first pastel drawings were produced between 1890 and 1894. He usually depicted the his family, friends and other artists, including Kazimierz Lewandowski, Jacek Malczewski, Eliza Pareńska, Irena Solska, Jan Stanisławski. Wyspiański ardently drew his children in everyday situations such as sleeping or feeding.
In August 1894 he returned to Kraków. There he got involved in the modernist movement. As a painter, interior designer and poet he cooperated with the Town Theatre in Kraków. First Stanisław Wyspiański designed furniture and scenography for the theatre performances, then he staged various dramas on the stage of the theatre. During that time he made plans for architectural restorations, in particular for the Wawel Royal Castle; worked on polychrome and monumental stained-glass windows for Kraków's Franciscan church; developed artwork for the modernist literary journal "Życie". Stanisław Wyspiański worked fast and with extraordinary intensity.
His first published dramas Legenda (Legend) (1897) and Daniel i Meleager (Daniel and Meleagra) (1898) did not receive the acclaim of the critics. It was his Warszawianka (Varsovian Anthem) that brought immediate recognition to its creator. The Lvov premiere on July 2, 1901, starred Helena Modrzejewska as Maria. The actress was renowned for her roles in Shakespeare's dramas. Modrzejewska instantly saw in Wyspiański a great visionary of the theatre. She later played Laodamia in the first-night performance of Protesilas and Laodamia on April 25, 1903, and it was to Modrzejewska that Wyspiański dedicated his verse on acting.
Two years after the première of Warszawianka, Wyspiański finished Legion [The Legion], a dramatic production of Adam Mickiewicz's vision of Rome. The key themes of Wyspiański's dramas were best represented in Wesele [The Wedding]. This drama tried to revive the symbolic language used to talk about history and the current situation in Poland, and showed a picture of a powerless society. First staged at Kraków's City Theatre on March 16, 1901, the play brought instant acclaim to its author.
After the success of Wesele, Stanisław Wyspiański staged Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady [The Forefathers' Eve]. The première took place on October 31, 1901. In December, he published his adaptation under the title of Adama Mickiewicza "Dziady" sceny dramatyczne. Tak jak byńy grane w teatrze krakowskim dnia 31 paźdz. 1901 [Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady. Dramatic Scenes. As They Were Played in the Kraków Theatre on October 31, 1901]. Then the adaptation was presented at the Polish Theatre in Poznan on November 1, 1902 and was played in theatres all over Poland for the following twenty years.
Wyspiański's key theme was freedom of the individual. His dramas and adaptations tested and ultimately denounced all freedom-curbing mechanisms. Later four new plays based on Polish history were published Wyzwolenie [Liberation], Achilles, Bolesław Śmiały [Boleslaus The Bold] and Legenda II [Legend 2]. In July 1903, a bilingual edition of The Iliad came out for which Wyspiański made illustrations.
Wyspiański got a painful blow when he wasn't allowed to participate in the restoration of Wawel after the Austrian army vacated the Royal Castle in 1904. In early 1905, Stanisław Wyspiański competed to lease Kraków's City Theatre, devising its repertoire and production plans, and writing a scene, Smierc Ofeli [Death of Ophelia]. The Kraków City Council rejected his bid and Ludwik Solski received the post of the director of the Theatre.
In 1906 Wyspiański was appointed a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts (now Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts) in Kraków. In his last years, the condition of Wyspianski's health deteriorated. As a result, he underwent medical treatments in Rymanów and Bad Hall and then settled in his small cottage in the village of Węgrzce.
(Acropolis: the Wawel Plays, brings together four of Wyspi...)
design
Krakow Medical Society House, Stained Glass Window
Krakow Medical Society House, Stained Glass Window
painting
Dziewczynka W Czerwonej Sukience W Grochy
Widok Na Mury
Paw
Antoni Lange
Wladyslawa Ordon
Główka Helenki, Córki Artysty
Malwy, Projekt Polichromii Dla Kościoła Parafialnego w Bieczu w Skali
Portret Z Zona
Portret Żony W Serdaku
View of Wawel
Autoportret
Portrait Tadeusz Boy Zelenski
Irises
Irena Solska
Chłopiec Z Kwiatem
Portret Jerzego Zulawskiego
Wnetrze Pracowni
Dziewczynka W Ludowym Stroju
Irises
Dziewczynka Z Wazonem Z Kwiatami
J.A.Kisielewski
Portret Marii Waśkowskiej
Dagny Juel Przybyszewska
Autoportret
Józef Mehoffer
Zagroda W Konarach
Madonna and Child
Portret Dziecka
Motherhood
Widok Z Okna Pracowni Na Kopiec Kościuszki
Dziewczynka
Lucjan Rydel
Stanislaw Wyspianski Self Portrait
Zakola Wisly
Portret Ojca
Ptaszkowa
Planty O Swicie
Krajobraz Znad Rudawy
Sleeping Staś
Ptaszkowa
Roze
Chaty W Grebowie
Kraków Church of St. Francis Stained Glass 01
Wisla Pod Krakowem
Pejzaż Z Rzeką
Portrait of Władysław Mickiewicz
Rose
Krakow Medical Society House, Frieze Design
Pejzaż Podmiejski Z Okolic Paryża
Portret Jerzego Żuławskiego
Autoportret
ApolloWys
Portret Honoraty Leszczyńskiej W Roli Katarzyny
Mulchs
Śpiące Dziecko Na Poduszce
Tetmajer
Portret Pagaczewskiego
Motherhood
Girl Putting out a Candle
Jan Stanisławski
View of Kościuszko Mound from the Artist's Atelier
Autoportret
Connections
Stanisław Wyspiański married Teodora Pytko in 1900. The marriage produced three children. His first daughter Helena (Helenka) was born in 1895. In 1898 his second child, son Mieczyslaw (Mietek) Bolesław, was born. Their last son Stanisław (Stas) was born in 1901.