Robert Kuśmirowski | "Traumgutstrasse" Salon Akademii (09/2014) (original) (raw)

The subject of the paper is a painting by Artur Grottger, which has not yet been the subject of close art historical analysis, hindered by the complicated history of the painting as a material object: from its creation (1861–63) and being exhibited in Vienesse Kunstverein in 1864 (titled Das Gebet vor der Schlacht. Episode aus der vergangenen Zeit in Polen), via its appearances and disappearances in the arena of history, till its present status of an object in a private collection, whichlimits its accessibility. The reconstruction of the process of constituting its present title (The Bar Confederates Pray Before the Battle of Lanckorona), reveals the problematic status of the reference to the specific battle fought during the Bar Confederation (1768–1772). The confrontation of the pictorial presentation with a real course of the battle of Lanckorona (23 May 1771) proves that it was not Grottger’s imperative to reconstruct in a probabilistic manner neither the place nor the course o...