PANKIEWICZ, Józef

Polish painter and graphic artist; one of the first Impressionists and Symbolists in Polish art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; initiator of the Colourist movement in Polish painting of the 1920s and 30s.

He studied (1884-85) at the Warsaw Drawing School under Wojciech Gerson (1831-1901) and Aleksander Kamiński (1823-1886). In 1885 he went to St Petersburg with his friend Władysław Podkowiński and continued his studies (1885-86) at the Academy of Fine Arts there, deriving most profit from his visits to the great collections of older painting.

His early work, largely realistic records of Warsaw life, such as Fair at the Iron Gate (1888; Poznań, National Museum), was influenced by contact with Aleksander Gierymski (1850-1901). In 1889 Pankiewicz spent nine months in Paris, again with Podkowiński. The work of Claude Monet exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit prompted Pankiewicz to rework in an Impressionist manner a realistic Paris scene he had painted, Flower Market at the Madeleine in Paris (1890; Poznan, National Museum). When exhibited in Poland such work initiated much heated discussion about ImpressionismGLOSSARYA style of painting that became prominent in the last quarter of the 19th century as a reaction to the ossified doctrine of the Academy and the content-oriented atelier, historical, and genre painting. The name is derived from the 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet, and first was used by art critics as a mocking description for a group of artists excluded from the official Salon, but who had their own first group exhibition in 1874 at the salon of the Parisian photographer Nadar. Impressionism, as a new type of naturalism, negated classical pictorial methods; based on contemporary theories of physics, it indicated the natural object in a revolutionary fashion - entirely as a manifestation of colour. Their supreme principle was "plein-air" or open-air painting, through which the painters tried to capture a direct, spontaneous impression of what they saw..

Pankiewicz's purest Impressionist works, such as Landscape around Kazimierz-on-the Vistula (1890; Cracow, National Museum), soon gave way, however, to Symbolist works. From 1892 he painted nocturnal views of Warsaw, such as The Old City Market, Warsaw, at Night (1892; Cracow, National Museum), and melancholy landscapes at dawn and dusk, in restrained and subtle tones of green, grey and brown, for example Park in Duboj (1897; Warsaw, National Museum). Other works from this period were inspired by Pankiewicz's great love for French Symbolist literature, especially the work of Stéphane Mallarmé. The latter's poem on a swan, La Vierge, la vivace et le bel aujourd'hui, led Pankiewicz to produce one of his most beautiful nocturnes, Swans in the Saxon Garden in Warsaw at Night (1894; Warsaw, National Museum). Subsequent Symbolist paintings by Pankiewicz, however, reveal greater dependence on Symbolist work from elsewhere, familiar to him because of frequent journeys through western Europe. The influence of James McNeill Whistler, for example, may be seen in the concern for chromatic harmony in PortraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). of a Girl in Red Dress (1897; Kielce, National Museum).

Between 1897 and 1910 he was member of the group Sztuka ("Art"). In 1906-14 and 1919-23 he was professor at the Academy of Arts in Cracow. In 1925-39 he was director of the Paris branch of the Cracow Academy. On the outbreak of the war in 1939 he moved to France.