Children of Highlanders (Oath of Edelweiss)

Wojciech Gerson, encouraged by Józef Feliks Piwarski to study the domestic landscape, wandered ˗ together with Józef Szermentowski and Franciszek Kostrzewski ˗ across Poland, learning about the local nature, monuments and historical tokens. With the passion of an ethnographer, Gerson immortalised the local customs of residents of Mazowsze, Kujawy, Kielce Region, the Augustów Lakeland, Lublin, Wilno and Kowno (Kaunas). In 1860, he travelled to the south of Poland and walked on foot across Małopolska, Podhale and the Tatra Mountains. A work from the Szczecin collection is definitely a reminder of this trip; it forms an interesting testimony ˗ supplemented by the generic staffage ˗ to the realistic landscape painting of the mid 19th century. In the idyllic landscape set against a slightly misty mountainous landscape, the artist immortalised an intimate exchange of gazes between two models: a young man in a mountaineer's attire and a blond girl in a blue skirt. Both the edelweiss held by the girl ˗ the symbol of innocence ˗ and the gesture of the boy’s hands instil the declaration of feelings with dignity and solemnity. The picture with a diagonal composition, smoothly painted, without any clear traces of the brush strokes, confirms the proficiency of Gerson’s academic technique, relying on the harmonious combination of drawing-like precision with careful, soft chiaroscuro modelling and skilfully selected, tonally diversified array of colours. In the catalogue of works prepared personally by Wojciech, the date 1867 includes an entry entitled “Highlander Children” with information that it was initially purchased by the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw for the sum of 1,300 Polish zlotys and subsequently won as a prize and handed over to Ms. Pohl.

Dariusz Kacprzak