„The Painter of the Great Proustian Melancholy” - Willem Duyster in Zbigniew Herbert’s Archive

Abstract

The article is an analysis of the typescript and manuscripts of Zbigniew Herbert's unfinished sketch about Willem Duyster, the seventeenth century Dutch painter specializing in presenting genre scenes and guardroom scenes. First the edition of the essay prepared by Barbara Toruńczyk is commented on. Next, on the basis of a textological analysis of both the notes and all the surviving variants of the sketch, the most important motifs connected with Duyster's biography and work that Herbert took up were reconstructed: rehabilitation of the little master, the situation of soldiers in the 17^th century Netherlands, an analysis of the Amsterdam painting The Wedding Party seen before and after its restoration, the question of the “memory of the eye” that is connected with it, and the problem of the melancholy of Duyster's paintings, in which Herbert finds Proustian features.