In the Rocky Podhale. The Tatras portrayed in the paintings of the Young Poland artists and preserved in the National Museum in Krakow.

The last quarter of the 19th century and the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I constituted a period of a certain fashion for Zakopane, which became a meeting place for artists, musicians, politicians, writers, philosophers and scholars from all annexed territories and those who emigrated. The Tatras also became a focal point and gained an almost mystical and symbolic dimension both in art and in literature. The chronicler of that period – Tadeusz Boy-Żelenski wrote: "The Tatras – praised by Goszczyński, discovered by Chałubiński, made familiar by Witkiewicz and his delightful book titled Pass, embodied in Asnyk's impeccable verses – could reach their fullest poetic potential only in the Young Poland period." Literature included works by Jan Kasprowicz, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer or Tadeusz Miciński. Tatra landscapes painted by Leon Wyczółkowski, Wojciech Weiss, Władysław Ślewiński, Jan Stanisławski and his students created a certain Tatra epic, which implied references to the hidden (latent) freedom in the mountains. They also constituted a unique painting equivalent of poetry by Tetmajer or Kasprowicz.

The exhibition titled In the Rocky Podhale is a small presentation of several major works depicting the Tatras, preserved in the National Museum in Krakow. The paintings were created by the Young Poland landscape artists: Leon Wyczółkowski – author of the most beautiful and most authentic paintings and prints depicting the Tatra Mountains; Jan Stanisławski, who – fascinated by these mountains – repeatedly returned to the Tatras and organized open air painting sessions for the students of his “landscape class”, and Stanisław Gałek – Stanisławski's student and an artist praising the beauty of the Tatra Mountains, who belonged to the younger generation.

Each painting will be accompanied by Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer's verses – a poetic equivalent of the painted landscape and its atmosphere.



Curator: Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha
Coordinator: Agnieszka Gąsienica-Giewont
Layout: Luiza Berdak