Project : Art in Poland

The Siberian serves

Jacek Malczewski was born in 1854. He came from a poor family. Malczewski spent his early childhood with uncle in Radom. A few years later he started his education in a grammar school in Cracow- and there, in this lovely and historic city, in the midst of some excellent painters Malczewski began his real, wonderful career. In 1837 he went to Cracow Academy of Fine Arts, and since then with another great Polish artist- Jan Matejko – he painted his first pictures. He also studied abroad at French universities.

Jacek Malczewski traveled a lot. He took part in a scientific expedition to Asia Minor, he visited Greece, Italy, spent a few months in Munich.

Finally in 1886 he settled down in Cracow for good, where he got married and became a professor, later a chancellor of Cracow Academy Fine of Arts. Late in the years in his life Malczewski became blind. He died in Cracow in 1929.

 Malczewski was the precursor of symbolism in Poland. Drawing Polish folk art and Romantic literature, he established his position as the first neo-Romantic of “Young Poland”. The first stage was called ”The Siberian serves” illustrating the torment of Polish deportees, portrayed naturalistically or filtered through the mystical poetry of Slowacki. During the”Young Poland” period, Malczewski created his own unique symbolic vocabulary in which corporeal and robust figures of chimeras, fauns, angels, and water sprites appear both in allegorical portraits, innumerable  self-portraits, landscapes, genre and religious scenes and finally, in compositions which do not correspond to any thematic conventions. The picture of landscapes and countryside by Malczewski explore folk motifs constantly present in the art of this period, and have been given a prominent place at the Paris show. Another important element of  Malczewski ‘s works is the world of fairy tales. He integrates realistic, typical Polish landscapes with unreal, fabulous chimeras, fauns and specters.

  In his picture-from Siberian serves (one of the most dramatic and depressing painting) we can see couple of people sitting around the table. Some of them are really sad , one is covering his face with a plate, probably to hide his tears. We can also notice despair and loneliness among them because they are so far from their houses and families, with no hope for return…

Urszula Polak
Barbara Szwarc
Joanna Szynal
Anna Sliwa