Centenary Show For Wyspianski

Stanislaw Wyspianski 1869-1907: "Monumental Theatre"
National Museum, Cracow
November 28th 2007 - March 2nd 2008

Celebrating the centenary of a great artist piles on the pressure. Especially if you try something original. The predictable thing would be to lay on a grand retrospective, tying together the whole of an artist's career, from strained student to trailblazing titan. The National Museum has shunned such a show, trying its hand at something altogether different.

Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907) was certainly great. He was also Cracovian, which dumps an extra dollop of pressure on the curator. You can't mess up Wyspianski - it would be sacrilege... And so it must have been with a fair few butterflies that the contract was signed to stage an interactive show that hardly touched the huge resources of portraits, sketches, furniture and other actual objects that came from the hand of Wyspianski himself.

Above: Hall of mirrors reflecting Wyspianski's mural designs for Cracow's Franciscan Church

Little known outside his country (few Western art historians penetrated Cracow during the Cold War), Wyspianski's life presents a gift for pundits. A multi-talented man who was plagued by illness, he struggled to make 38, attaching a plank to his drawing arm in later years so as to steady his hand. He mixed with the aristocracy but married a peasant girl (as was the fashion amongst Cracow's artistic avant-garde). He wrote Poland's best-loved play (The Wedding - 1901), yet was openly critical of the inertia of his countrymen at a time when Poland itself was divided between three occupying powers. He drew, he designed furniture and stage sets, he wrote poems, he illustrated books - he was a Renaissance man.

In Wyspianski's times, Cracow belonged to Galicia, the Austrian partition of Poland. In those days, Austria offered far greater freedoms than Russian or Prussian Poland. Cracow became the spiritual home of the nation once more, and Wyspianski was its seer.

This new exhibition, which marks the centenary of Wyspianski's death, hurls you into the artist's world without actually lining up dozens of paintings for us to consider. Taking the grand national themes of his plays as a point of departure, the National uses digital projections, excerpts from feature films, stage sets, and even a hall of mirrors to cast its spell. It's an intoxicating mix, elegantly realised. Poles generally concur that the exhibition has grasped the spirit of Wyspianski in an inspirational way. However, owing to the complex, idiosyncratic Polish themes that Wyspianski dealt with, some exhibits may be bewildering to foreign guests. Nevertheless, most of the rooms are so beautifully realised that they are captivating in the visual dimension alone. Children gaze enchanted at the vast digital recreation of Wawel Cathedral, likewise the hall of mirrors.

At the end of the show a large screen reveals how Cracow's Royal Citadel would have looked had Wyspianski's designs been implemented. It's an inspiring end to a strikingly original show - one that Wyspianski himself would surely have approved of.


** A fantastic complement to the exhibition would be a visit to the Franciscan Church, or the Wyspianski Museum itself.

The National Museum,
Ul. 3 Maja 1