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A great stir in Cracow sculpture was occasioned by the competition for a monument to Poland's greatest poet, Mickiewicz, in 1880-1890: this gave an opportunity for arising into public notice to some young talents previously hidden in obscurity. The model which connoisseurs reputed best, that of Anthony Kurzawa (representing Mickiewicz waking to life the winged Genius of Poetry) did not obtain the first prize; it was too purely intellectual, too much devoid of glaring outward symbols to suit the taste of the general public: this turned rather to
75. MONUMENT OF QUEEN HEDWIG IN WAWEL CATHEDRAL.
(A. Madeyski.) the project of Thaddæus Rygier, which accordingly carried the day. His monument, in deference to literary considerations with which we are not concerned, was put in a place decidedly ill-chosen from the aesthetic point of view, and thus Central Square was disfigured rather than adorned. Rygier's monument is of very unequal artistic merit; at all events, it is the production of an intelligent artist, anxious to preserve harmony of proportions in the groups, to which he has given a graceful if somewhat lifeless expression.