Tatra Epic in Paintings

• In the mid-19th century, a new location appeared on the artistic and social map – Zakopane. Not only was it a holiday destination, but above all a fashionable resort in which, under the pretext of tuberculosis treatment, the artistic and intellectual Parnassus used to meet. The popularity continues, and with time Zakopane becomes, as described by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 'a true paradise, a horrid orangery (…) a general production plant of a peculiar, nota bene purely Polish drug, 'zakopiate'.
  
  The list of its visitors is very long, and each year more artists flock to Zakopane for longer or shorter periods of time, some to stay permanently. The 'permanent' was very 'temporary' – observed Rafał Malczewski.
  
  This fashion resulted, among other things, in the characteristic Tatra epic painted by the artists of successive generations, which implied both their fascination with the impressiveness of the mountains and the idea of freedom hidden (dormant) in their rocks – so important in those days.
  
  
  Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha

• 
  Download photo

  Jan Nepomucen Głowacki, Morskie Oko [Sea Eye] Lake in the Tatras, 1837

• 
  Download photo

  Alfred Schouppé, In the Strążyska Valley – a drawing from the album 'Polish Landscapes by Alfred Schouppe', 1860

• 
  Download photo

  Aleksander Kotsis, A Trip to the Tatras, 1873

• 
  Download photo

  Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski, Guide and Tourists in the Tatras, 1878

• 
  Download photo

  Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski, The Kościeliska Valley – a drawing from 'The 10-Year Tatra Diary of Walery Eljasz from 1883 to 1893 inlc.', 1883

• 
  Download photo

  Wojciech Gerson, The Bramka [Gate] Valley in the Tatras, 1890

• 
  Download photo

  Aleksander Mroczkowski, Morskie Oko [Sea Eye] Lake, 1891

• 
  Download photo

  Aleksander Mroczkowski, The Mała Łąka [Little Meadow] Valley, c. 1892

• 
  Download photo

  Wojciech Gerson, Podhale Landscape, 1892

• 
  Download photo

  Stanisław Witkiewicz, Mountain Stream in the Forest, c. 1894

• 
  Download photo

  Stanisław Janowski, Ludwig Boller, Panorama of the Tatras (fragment), 1894

• 
  Download photo

  Stanisław Witkiewicz, Spring, 1896

• 
  Download photo

  Aleksander Mroczkowski, View of Hawrań and Murań from Wołoszyn, 1899

• 
  Download photo

  Jan Stanisławski, View of Osobita, 1901

• 
  Download photo

  Leon Wyczółkowski, At the Chałubiński's Gate, 1905

• 
  Download photo

  Leon Wyczółkowski, Morskie Oko [Sea Eye] Lake in the Fog, 1911

• 
  Download photo

  Leon Wyczółkowski, Morning over Morskie Oko [Sea Eye] Lake in the Tatras, 1920

• 
  Download photo

  Władysław Skoczylas, Giewont, plate from the 'Podhale Portfolio', 1921

• 
  Download photo

  Rafał Malczewski, Tatra Landscape – Pond, c. 1928