Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Józef Pankiewicz is one of the artists who, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, led to the autonomy of graphic as an independent form of artistic expression and to its detachment from illustrative and reproductive functions. The artist created about one hundred graphics, dominated by landscape reminiscences from journeys and views of visited cities. Pankiewicz usually used etching and the dry needle techniques, which best expressed his artistic sensitivity. The apparent limitation of graphic, resulting from the narrowing of the colour scale to black and white, was not an obstacle for him. Thanks to his experience as a painter he was able to translate his impressionistic experiences into a matrix in an equally perfect manner as he searched for purely graphic means of expression. Views from his journeys can be compared to the pages of a sketchbook, in which the artist hastily recorded the places he visited in shots from nature, often transferring them directly to the plate. The view of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was published in 1903 in the Portfolio of the Association of Polish Graphic Artists, which popularised graphic art. The publication was made possible thanks to the efforts of Feliks “Manggha” Jasieński, one of the greatest enthusiasts of graphic art and advocate of liberating this artistic discipline from the domination of painting. Jasieński invited outstanding painters to collaborate on the creation of the sheets for the portfolio, whom he managed to infect with enthusiasm for the graphic medium: Apart from Pankiewicz, the portfolio includes works by T. Axentowicz, J. Chełmoński, R. Malczewski, J. Mehoffer, L. Wyczółkowski and S. Wyspiański. The presented print shows the cathedral in a mirror-like view, from the perspective of the high Seine embankment. The character of the representation is determined by a well-thought-out composition built with horizontal lines, which is balanced by the rhythm of the verticals - the mast of the centrally located boat and the spire of the cathedral. Pankiewicz constructs the individual elements of the drawing by means of long, parallel lines, which repeat the horizontal arrangement of the composition.

Anna Hałata