View from Kazimierz

Władysław Skoczylas (1883-1934) is considered the initiator and creator of modern Polish woodcut, an artist who significantly influenced the popularity and development of this graphic discipline in Poland. Skoczylas studied painting at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts under T. Axentowicz and L. Wyczółkowski and sculpture under K. Laszczek. In 1918 he became a professor of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, and four years later he began teaching at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw (later the Academy), where he headed the Department of Printmaking, educating successive generations of young woodcut students. He was a co-founder and member of the associations of Polish Artists “Rytm” and Graphic Artists “Ryt”. He became interested in printmaking as a mature artist, abandoning oil painting in its favour. He gained knowledge about the technique at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig. Skoczylas developed an individual character of woodcuts, referring stylistically to the folk art of Podhale, characterized by a flexible line full of precision. Through the presence of folklore inspiration in his work, he joined the search for a national style characteristic of the interwar period. In addition to the fascination with folklore, Skoczylas translated his interests into urban landscapes, using them as readily as the graphic medium - watercolour. One of the artist's favourite towns was Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula River, where he came with his students to plein-air painting workshops since 1920. His views of the town are characterized by a variety of shots, in which his documentary ability to see is combined with a passion for individual shaping of the landscape. It was manifested in architectural fantasies, sometimes composed of freely compiled elements of the Kazimierz landscape. The view of the Hill of Three Crosses, the centrally located parish church and the butcher's shops, relocated from another part of the town, shows the artist's sense of form and compositional skill, manifested in the accumulation of plans.

Anna Hałata