Painting

Polish art owes one of the first inspirations with Parisian Impressionism to Józef Pankiewicz and Władysław Podkowiński. Pankiewicz returned to Paris many times. In 1906, he accepted the position of professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he shaped the creative attitude of a broad group of young artists for years. The National Museum in Szczecin holds two works painted during the artist's stay in Paris in 1908. Both are painted from the perspective of the Place Carrousel in Paris, one showing the Louvre and the other, discussed here, the Arc de Triomphe. The view shows the east side of the arch commemorating the victory of Napoleon's army at Austerlitz, with the Louvre in the back. Everything has been painted in very general terms. The group of sculptures crowning the triumphal arch is just a blurred grey patch. The kind of representation and how the paint was applied - fast, interrupted, imprecise - shows that the artist was still inspired by Impressionism. He rendered the atmosphere of a sunny and bright day well, which seems to be the artist's primary intention. It is worth mentioning that Pankiewicz did not create his works according to all Impressionist rules. He kept the traditional perspective and local colour. However, he undertook the method of showing the uneven sky, traces of which can also be seen on the canvas of interest to us here, which placed the introduction of the effect of aerial perspective in the centre.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska