Church of Saint Adalbert in Lublin

The portfolio Lublin belongs to the mature graphic works of Leon Wyczółkowski (1852-1936), who devoted over thirty years of his artistic activity to graphic arts, abandoning oil painting in its favour. He became interested in the graphic medium around 1900. Already as a mature, recognised artist he began to analyse the technical possibilities of etching, aquatint, algraphy, fluorophores and, above all, lithography. Thanks to the similarity of the effects of a lithographic print to drawing and painting and the possibilities for experimentation that best suited Wyczółkowski's preferences and temperament, lithography became the artist's favourite technique. He published cycles of graphic works in low-cost portfolios devoted to the landscape and architecture of Polish cities. In his panoramic city views, shots of historic buildings and meticulously recreated architectural details, he combined documentary skills with an extraordinary passion for individual feeling of architecture. The portfolio Lublin is one of the most beautiful graphic portraits of the city, which the artist supplemented with three boards unrelated to architecture. These include views of trees: two versions of Sosenki [Pines] and Stara Lipa w Piotrawinie [Old Lime Tree in Piotrawin]. Wyczółkowski prepared the drawing sketches during his stay in Lublin in 1918. Composed of seventeen auto-lithographic boards, the portfolio was published a year later in Kraków in twenty copies. After printing the edition assumed by the artist the lithographic stones were destroyed, which in Wyczółkowski's case was a frequent practice and gave his prints a unique character. One of the most interesting plates of the portfolio, characterised by technical virtuosity and painterly sensitivity, depicts St Adalbert's Church, dating from 1611, situated outside the walls of the Old Town, together with monastery buildings in the scenery of a winter snowdrift (Plate 15). The artist consciously given up precise graphic lines bringing out architectural details in favour of soft, chiaroscuro modelled planes. Their contours are blurred by vibrating snowflakes blown from the surface of the roof covered with white down, which dynamise the composition and give it expression. The effect of a snowstorm is intensified by the blue-grey paper and the greyish colour scheme heralding the approaching dusk.

Anna Hałata