The painting is a projection of the artist’s soul based on the work of Adam Chmielowski „Abandoned Presbytery” („Opuszczona plebania”)

Renata Wierna

Abstract

Adam Chmielowski, later St. Brother Albert, studied painting in Munich, in the years 1870–1874. There, he met a group of Polish artists who, like him, left Poland after the January Uprising and the closing of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Artistically, they formed a fairly homogeneous group. They cultivated a romantic vision of art. They preferred landscape to traditional historical painting. Their works referred to Poland (the January Uprising, Polish landscapes). The paintings had a specific mood, an air of mystery and contemplative silence. Currently, they are referred to as the „Munich School”. Adam Chmielowski belonged to this group as well. His views on art were probably shaped already in Munich, and he remained faithful to them until the end of his artistic career. For him, a painting should reflect the soul of an artist. This way, through their art, the artist can make a connection with a viewer and vice versa. The subject of the article is an attempt to get to know the soul of Adam Chmielowski on the basis of his painting „Abandoned Presbytery”. The painting shows the state of spiritual suffering, the experience of abandonment by God and people. The juxtaposition of events in Chmielowski’s life with the expressiveness of the painting suggests that it was painted several years earlier (in the years 1882-1884) than what the date on the signature indicates.