Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/206

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ART FROM THE RENASCENCE
186

red flames of ecstatic love of God, deserve mention as a splendid manifestation of his intuitive understanding of medieval religious mysticism (aided by suggestions from Slowacki's poetry in his Calderonian period); so do his projects for windows in Wawel Cathedral, representing, with a grand sweep of outline, one, the figure of King Casimir the Great as discovered in his tomb, terrible in the majesty of death; the other, that of Henry the Pious as he fell fighting against the Mongolian invaders on Lignica field in 1246.

There can hardly be a greater contrast than that which prevails between the medieval visions of Wyspianski and the sunny, brightly smiling impressionist world of Professor Axentowicz's art; his female figures, dexterously outlined on canvas or paper, are so many fleeting types of the Eternal-Feminine in its capricious grace. Professor Stanislawski (d. 1908) was chiefly remarkable for bits of Polish rural scenery with all the peculiar spirit of the landscape in them, and later on for glaring patches of glorious Italian sun, sea, and shore. Joseph Mehofer, who won the gold medal at Paris in 1900, is equally excellent in realistic portraits and in magnificent cartoons for wall and window paintings, which show depth of thought united with wonderful technical skill, e.g., his plans for the interior decoration of the Cathedral Treasury when restored. A society called Sztuka (Art), which was founded in 1896, unites a group of leading artists who profess the modern principles of art, for the purpose of common action, chiefly by means of exhibitions. The most eminent among them are the portraitists Olga Boznanska, Joseph Czajkowski, Edward Trojanowski, Adalbert Weiss, Charles Tichy, and several of the above-mentioned professors in the Academy.

Finally, there remains to be mentioned, among the painters living at Cracow, Professor Hyacinth Malczewski, who occupies a quite separate and distinct position. It is not merely his masterful correctness of design, his familiarity with the most recent tendencies in art, and his great susceptibility that deserve high praise; but above all this, his pictures, by the extraordinary