![]() Seldom are any of Siemiradzki's paintings less than the size of wall murals or theater curtains, which became his specialty and the work for which he is most remembered.Ĭhrist in the House of Martha and Mary, 1886, Henryk Siemiradzki There, in the Eternal City, he fell under the spell of Roman antiquities and set up his studio. He graduated there, winning a gold medal for his Christ and the Sinner (above), which allowed him to further his studies in Munich and Rome. Petersburg and the Imperial Academy of Arts where he was to study painting for the next six years. After graduation in 1864, having fulfilled his father's wishes, the would-be artist headed for St. He's said to have studied the natural sciences there with great interest, even as he also continued to paint. Although he started painting in high school, young Siemiradzki was guided (or forced) into becoming a science major at the Physics-Mathematics School of Kharkov University. Siemiradzki came from a small village near Kharkov (eastern Ukraine near the Russian border). Henryk Siemiradzki (your guess as to pronunciation is as good as mine) was born in 1843. Despite having all the natural talent an artist could ever wish for, and having absorbed all the practiced teachings of previous art generations, Siemiradzki's paintings are also burdened with most of worst traits of academicism to be found in 19th-century painting, in Poland or anywhere else in the western world.Ĭhrist and the Sinner, 1873, Henryk Siemiradzki Siemiradzki's Talisman, (above) is typical of his Academic sweetness. Now, having said that, Siemiradzki was a product of the Polish academic world of art, which, while it denotes a strong background in figures, composition, drawing, lighting, color, and painting technique, it also carries with it a penchant for sanitized eroticism, syrupy sweet pastoral idealism, exaggerated heroism, fabricated mythology, and aesthetically adjusted history. He did what I could never do, which is pretty much the reason any artist impresses me. Siemiradzki produced large scale, highly detailed, paintings of Greco-Roman life as well as biblical scenes composed straight from his imagination with little more than a talented hand, a perceptive eye, and exceptional academic training. I've always considered myself to have just such a vivid imagination, but despite being an artist, mine has always tended toward the literary rather than the visual. I was going to say that Siemiradzki must have taken Ward's words and made the most of them, but in that Siemiradzki died in 1902 and Ward wasn't born until 1921, perhaps the reverse is true-Ward may have been inspired by the Polish painter to so prodigiously pontificate. The Polish painter Henryk Siemiradzki had a vivid imagination. ![]() A vivid imagination is like strong drink without a cup it simply runs off onto the floor, suitable only to be slurped up by a drunken dog. ![]() Without Ward's alliterative four-step pronouncement of practical presentation, we'd have no tall tales told, no paintings produced, no plays presented, no audiences amuse (I can alliterate too). Of course that alone, without a concerted, concrete calling to create that imagined world, is a recipe for frustration, at best, starvation at worst. Pursue persistently.” I always enjoy finding an artist with a vivid imagination. The American Scholar, William Arthur Ward, once said, "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it." He went on to comment as to achievement: "Plan purposefully. One of the most valuable assets an artist can possess is a vivid imagination.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |