The Late Birth of a Great Artist: Piotr Michałowski’s Sketchbook of 1832

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Cover illustration: Piotr Michałowski’s self-portrait from his sketchbook of 1832, National Museum in Warsaw, Rys. Pol. 7244.

This publication was financially supported by the University of Warsaw.

ISBN 978-3-631-85139-5 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-85146-3 (E-PDF)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-85244-6 (EPUB)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-85245-3 (MOBI)

DOI 10.3726/b18301

© Peter Lang GmbH

Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Berlin 2021

All rights reserved.

Peter Lang – Berlin • Bern • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Warszawa • Wien

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© J. K. Ostrowski, E. Wichrowska

This publication has been peer reviewed.

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About the authors

Jan K. Ostrowski, art historian. Former Professor at the Jagiellonian University and director of the Wawel Royal Castle, Krakow. President of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Authored numerous publications on early modern art in France, Italy and Poland.

Elżbieta Wichrowska, Professor, literary historian, editor. Head of the Laboratory of manuscripts and inedits 1700–1850 at the Faculty of Polish Studies, University of Warsaw. Her research concerns the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

About the book

The book covers a very special moment in the life of Piotr Michałowski (1800–55), the most outstanding painter of Polish Romanticism. In his early life, Michałowski built a career as a technocrat and became head of the state-owned heavy industry. At the time, he proved himself a brilliant amateur salon painter. During the anti- Russian uprising of 1830–31, he was responsible for producing weapons for the Polish army, and would later head for France to pursue the arts. This change in his mindset is documented by the sketchbook he kept in January 1832. It illustrates the transition from a superficial salon artist to keen student of nature and insightful realist. The authors analyze the sketchbook, the circumstances of its creation, and its deeper structure from several perspectives.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

A Brief Foreword to the English Edition

Introduction

1.Piotr Michałowski in 1832: The Birth of a Conscious Artist

2.Podgórze

3.Sketchbook No. 7244

4.The Sketchbook as a Diary

Conclusion