To the bottom of Bosporus

Wacław Pawliszak (1866-1905) was gifted with an extraordinary talent for drawing, which he showed already as a child. He developed his artistic passion under Wojciech Gerson at the Warsaw Drawing Class, and later at the Kraków School of Fine Arts (1880-1885), where he became one of Jan Matejko's favourite pupils. Pawliszak's talent was confirmed by Podarunek kozaczy [Gift from the Cossacks], painted while still a student. The painting, exhibited by the only nineteen-year-old artist at the Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts (1885), and later at the Krywult Salon in Warsaw, was very well received by critics and the public. In 1885, Pawliszak left for Munich to continue his education under Józef Brandt, and a year later under Carolus-Duran in Paris. Already present in his early works, his interest in the culture of the East resulted in numerous trips by the artist to Africa (Algiers, Tunis, Morocco), to the Middle East in 1885 (Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey), in 1893, to Albania and Dalmatia and Rome, and in 1898 to the Caucasus and Crimea. During his eastern peregrinations, he searched for subjects for his canvases, explored his knowledge of customs and amassed a collection of oriental costumes and weapons. In the introduction to the exhibition catalogue at the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1933), Jan Kleczyński described Pawliszak as "a talent living in fantasy, exoticism [...] as if unwilling to see everyday life, in love with the East, in the fairy tales of Scheherazade". The Oriental themes explored in the watercolour Na dno Bosforu [At the Bottom of the Bosphorus] are among the main trends in the artist's work, along with historical and battle painting. The hastily composed scene, probably created under the influence of a trip to Turkey, testifies to the artist's great sensitivity and ability to capture subtleties of colour and light. Pawliszak was shot dead by Xawery Dunikowski. The reason for his death was a personal dispute with the sculptor and his refusal to participate in a duel, to which Pawliszak challenged him.

Anna Hałata