Jan Stanisławski
1860 - 1907

Jan Stanisławski graduated from the Mathematics Department at the University of Warsaw, and later studied at the Institute of Technology in Petersburg. He began painting studies at Wojciech Gerson's Class of Drawing in Warsaw and continued his education at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków as a student of Władysław Łuszczkiewicz (1884-1885). He then studied painting in the studio of Carolus-Duran (Charles Durand) in Paris (1885-1888), where he met and befriended Józef Chełmoński. While living in Paris, he made numerous artistic trips to Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Bohemia and, several times to Ukraine. In 1895, he moved to Berlin, where he collaborated with Wojciech Kossak in painting the panorama Crossing of the Berezina River. In 1896, he painted the landscape pieces for Jan Styka's panorama Golgotha.

In 1897, the artist settled in Kraków, where he was appointed head of the reinstituted Landscape Painting Department in the School of Fine Arts which had been closed for twenty years. In 1900, he also tutored in Tola Certowiczówna's School of Painting and Drawing for Women.

Stanisławski was one of the founders of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" beginning in 1897, and from 1901, a member of the Society of Polish Applied Arts.

During the ten years of his educational work, Stanisławski held innovative plein-air classes in Kraków's Botanical Garden and Jordan Park. He also took his students to summer plein-air sessions in the vicinity of Kraków and Zakopane. He educated approximately sixty students, who were later referred to as the "Stanisławski School" (e.g., Stanisław Czajkowski, Stefan Filipkiewicz, Stanisław Kamocki, Henryk Szczygliński, Iwan Trusza, Henryk Uziembło) and he significantly influenced the milieu of landscape painters in Kraków. The artist also produced prints, illustrations (including some for the periodical Chimera), posters and theater decorations.

Stanisławski almost always painted "pure," symbolic landscapes, without any accessories.. A few hundred of his small pictures, painted mostly on wood panels and cardboard, remain in his oeuvre. His favorite motifs were the Ukrainian steppes, the flows of Dnepr River, orchards, apiaries, and single plants, usually placed in the foreground. The artist also painted urban motifs from Kraków, Kiev and Venice. At first he created realistic studies (landscapes and genre scenes), but later his palette became brighter as he assimilated the Impressionist play of colors and light, individually interpreted and developed in his own unique style. About 1900, his Impressionist method, which consisted of daubs of vibrating color and sharp contrasting hues disappeared and was replaced with flat, decorative brush marks with smooth, curving contours that diffused in dispersed light. Stanisławski, creating a generalized picture of nature, filtered by his extremely subjective vision, sometimes obtained virtually abstract effects.

The richest and the largest collection of his works is in the National Museum in Kraków.

-- Anna Król

Works in the collection: