Ut poesis pictura − on Jan Styka's Interpretation of Kornel Ujejski's Chorale

Abstract

The paper seeks to present a painting interpretation of Kornel Ujejski's composition noted in the 19th c. within the cycle of Jan Styka's six illustrations. The meanings of a literary text and painting have been put together on the level of an intersemiotic dialogue. The main problem addressed in the outline deals with the character of Styka's painting interpretation: did he illustrate the Chorale, or interpret Ujejski's composition in a painting product? The interpretation of the Chorale as a composition placed on various levels of a biblical style, with a messianic understanding of national suffering exposed by Ujejski, is confronted in an analysis with consecutive Styka's illustrations, which are an interpretation of subsequent verses of the Chorale and at the same time of the whole of senses of a poetic work.

Ujejski's composition was understood in the 19th c. as a work exposing the sense of national uprisings and national martyrology in the three partitions, and not only a mere poetic testimony of Galician riot. In his illustrations Styka depicts the style of reception characteristic of the 19th c. As an illustrator of a poetic text, and not of a narrative composition, he had to overcome other obstacles of a linguistic material than e.g. Andriolli illustrating the plot of Pan Tadeusz. He interpreted the meanings of the Chorale diverging from illustrating the literary layer of the text. While referring to the convention of the 19th-century paining (the uprising, battle, Siberian theme) Styka makes use in his interpretation of allegoric iconic signs as an equivalent of the messianic idea of suffering and future victory. At times he adds senses to the literary text, and concretizes poetic metaphors by means of painting (he illustrates Homeland, Pogrom). Styka as an illustrator sought to reveal a deeper, spiritual sense of national suffering, consequently adding painting meanings in consecutive illustrations, so that he could crown his work in a special manner in the last illustrations God was and is. Following Ujejski's text he introduced in it an apocalyptic motif of Angels' victory over the Beast, and drew on to the 19th-century uprising paintings. The thematic series of Styka's illustrations is an independent work, since by means of painting he depicts the vision of the history of Poland understood in messianic fashion, without falling into presenting the literal meanings of the text in an "pictorial fashion".

From the historico-literary point of view we may talk about a translation of literary meanings into a visual art, about the reconstruction of a literary text in another material.