XVII century art in Christian Eastern Europe. Art of this period in Poland.

1. Overview of the development of Polish art

Polish art develops in close connection with Western Europe. During the period under review, the predominant Italian influence was replaced in some areas (especially in sculpture) by German.

The Polish king, Jan Sobessky, won, as is known, in 1683 a decisive victory under Vienna, which stopped the invasion of the Turks and restored the independence of Hungary, which had languished for 144 years under the Mohammedan yoke. But the liberated countries in the coming decades were so busy with their economic renewal that they could not display any worthy mentioning of artistic activity. Therefore, in the field of art in the XVII century, only Poland and Russia were important in Eastern Europe. But the eastern character has, as before, only Russian art. Poland has for several centuries taken the side of Western Europe. True, there was no Polish art as such in the 17th century, nor was there Scandinavian art. But while in the XVI century Poland could boast of the best colony of Italian architects and sculptors on this side of the Alps and the constant influx of the best German masters, in the XVII century its art was brought by Italians and Germans to the middle style of the era, from which there was no way out. Moreover, the independent development of Kraków art was suddenly interrupted by the transfer of residence to Warsaw, carried out by Sigismund III at the beginning of the century; and in Warsaw, it was necessary to start anew from the beginning.

The most significant of the Kraków churches of the late Renaissance and Baroque remained the aforementioned cruciform, domed church of Peter, built by Bernardon. The most important baroque interior of the church in Krakow was the university church or the church of St. Anna, the main master of which was considered Pietro Paolo Olivieri. However, her luxurious gilded stucco works belong to Baldassare Fontana. Naturally, in the rapidly flourishing Warsaw, a number of new churches arose during the seventeenth century, which, however, revealed the style of the era in empty and heavy forms. In artistic terms, even the great cold Capuchin Church of the Transfiguration of Christ (1683), built by the court architect Agostino Locci to commemorate the victory over the Turks, almost does not matter. In any case, these specimens show that in Warsaw, as in Krakow, and in the seventeenth century, Italian artists were preferred.

Vielpolskogo Palace in Krakow, the current city hall, only an average work; and the first royal palaces of Warsaw do not rise to the level of exemplary works of architecture. If we compare the royal castle of Sigismund III with the picture of the ruined "Saxon Palace", in which the Saxon-Polish kings lived later, then here there is also a rebirth of medieval corner towers into more comfortable corner pavilions. The best construction of Jan Sobessky, which is arranged on both sides with pavilion towers, the middle building of the royal castle of Villanova near Warsaw, erected between 1688–1694, is more significant. Giuseppe Belotti.

In the field of sculpture, the Italian influence in Poland was again replaced by German in the 17th century. Breslavets Johann Pfister, who founded a large workshop in Lemberg in 1612, supplied the Polish churches with pretentious alabaster and marble tombs, of which we note the princely tombs of Tarnowsky Cathedral due to their size and luxury materials. Bronze and other metal sculptures seem to have been written primarily from Danzig. In any case, the silver sarcophagus of St. Stanislav in Krakow Cathedral (1671), decorated with medium-sized reliefs, came from Peter von den Rennen's Danzig workshop. Works of this kind reveal the sculptural style of the era in the Dutch-German style.

The same was true of painting in Poland. The Italian Tommaso Dolabella from Belluno, whose rather weak paintings, designed in the Late Venetian style, can be found in the churches of St. Catherine, sv. Mark and the Dominicans in Krakow, was the court painter Sigismund III. In the second half of the century, the influence of Rubens engravings reigned. They were held by a Pole, Franz Leksitsky, whose superficial, gigantic paintings fill the Polish churches of Bernardine. Daniel Freherus is best known as a Kraków portrait painter, the best work of which is considered to be a rather ugly portrait of the Bishop of Trzebitsky in the Franciscan church, depicting this high official of the church in front of a diagonally stretched entrance curtain. With particular pride, the Poles emphasize the fact that Bogdan Lubinetsky (1653–1729), who was at one time the director of the academy in Berlin, was a native of Krakow. But this middling artist does not owe his fatherland any education or fame.