Leonard Jan Józef Lepszy

“ The clothing of the figures is intended to cover completely the naked body, and it is in the lines of the drapery that the artist's imagination is fully and forcibly displayed; here the tendency to movement finds its immediate expression. Preference is given to strong, rough lines; they are characteristic of Northern work generally, and thus found in Poland too. The picturesque element enters with full force into all conceptions. Down to the middle of the fifteenth century Bohemian influences prevail at Cracow; from that time the art of Nuremberg is dominant. ”

“ Of the Gothic middle building, with pointed arches at the narrow ends and a steep-gabled roof, and of the booths built round it in several rows, not much has remained; the only medieval features of the present building are the buttresses, and the ground-plan as a whole; the ancient shop-stalls, owing to the raising of the level of the ground, make the cellars of to-day. ”

“ The square tomb is divided into panels containing figures, over each of which there is a tail-piece canopy with tracery. The tomb is surmounted by superb canopy on eight pillars, the whole monument profusely adorned with crockets and finials of exquisite workmanship.
Space forbidding us to give a detailed description of the consoles found in the convent cloisters, the ivory casket at St. Mary's Church, and sundry small objects wrought of precious material and preserved in the museums, we now pass on to fifteenth century sculpture. ”

“ The Northern artist, having no opportunity for close contact with the relics of antiquity, had to turn a diligent eye to nature. In the period we now speak of, plastic art is no more at the service of architecture, but independent. The sculptor makes no attempts at the monumental, but directs his endeavours to a servile imitation of nature ”

“ The ground-plan of this remarkable church consists of an oblong choir of one nave with a pentagonal chevet, and of a body of three aisles. The pillars are of the same outline as those in the cathedral and in St. Mary's, and, just as in these, richer ornamentation only begins about the turning-point of the arcade arches. The original vault broke down during an earthquake in 1443, and the new star-shaped one was put in its stead by the master-mason, Hanus, in 1505. ”

“ MYSTIC PRESS.
(Fresco Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the Cloisters of the Franciscan Convent.) distinguished by tasteful design and delicate execution. One Reinhardus, appointed Governor of Cracow by King Wenceslaus in 1305, had been minter at Florence. The first Polish gold coins produced under Ladislaus Lokietek were modelled on the fiorino d'oro. The Florentine lily, being equal in signification with that of Anjou, becomes the symbol of our Gothic period. Of all branches of applied art, metallurgy stands foremost. ”

“ The cross-vault of the middle aisle is of wood.
The outward view of the church is pleasing, chiefly owing tothe simple outlines of the choir. The buttresses, with stone pinnacles, project very far, and thus give some breadth to the building in spite of the general slenderness of its forms. The builder of the church—whose name is unknown—has left his monogram on an escutcheon above the entrance door. A noteworthy feature is formed by numerous portrait heads both within the church—on the consoles of the vault ribs—and without. ”

“ The architectural activity of the Gothic period coincides with an epoch of material progress. Two Orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, were particularly busy in satisfying the religious needs of the population by active church-building. The Franciscans seem to have been the first who introduced the Gothic movement into Polish art. Boleslaus the Modest called this brotherhood from Prague to Cracow, and installed them in two brick buildings, a church—originally devoted to the Holy Trinity—and a convent. ”

“ In order to increase the carrying-power of the many-jointed pillars, and at the same time to avoid the flying-buttresses which did not stand the raw air of the country very well, a protruding abutment was joined on to the back of each pillar; in other words, the buttresses serving to counteract the lateral thrust of the vaulting, and generally placed on the outside of Gothic buildings, were here put into the church itself; they rise up to the roof. ”

“ Its interior has the shape of an oblong hall with six cross vaults, resting on two tall round pillars. Within each of the arches formed by the wall-ribs there is a high-placed window with a round arch; these admit the light. The whole place, with its iron Al-Memar in the middle, has an air of grave solemnity. The vaulting, and the fantastically shaped outward ornaments of tin, probably date from the restoration in 1570; for in this year, the Cracow architect, Matteo Gucci, made a new vault to the synagogue. ”

“ At the same time foreign artists and merchants coming to Cracow brought woodcuts and copperplates, chiefly German work, into the town; these, of course, could not fail to exercise some direct influence on the imagination and workmanship of Cracow's painters. Thus, a miniature in the MSS. collection of the Chapter is copied from an engraving by Franz of Bocholt, or Israël of Meckenen.
Applied art, in the Gothic period, has the same origin as the plastic arts; its monuments are mostly products of native industry. ”

“ OUTER GATE OF ST. CATHERINE'S CHURCH. Besides the metropolis of Cracow, the rival town of Kazimierz, now a suburb, also developed Gothic architecture. Casimir the Great, after founding it, had called from Prague a colony of monks of the great mendicant Order of St. Augustine. The foundation stone of their church was laid in 1342, but it was not till 1378 that the choir was completed, the church consecrated and dedicated to St. Catherine. The body and the splendid porch are of fifteenth century origin (illustration 25) . ”

“ These relations with Prague, made evident by the works of art, are also attested by written records of the time. Most of our miniature painters probably began their career like John Klobuk, called Kropacz, who was a student in Prague University from 1398 to 1400, and there also acquired his knowledge of art, which he then turned to account at home. The records of Kazimierz town from the years 1387-1390 contain some interesting notes on prices of pictures bought from Cracow masters. ”

“ The restoration of several convent churches, during recent years, brought to light a number of valuable medieval wall paintings, which had been thickly covered by whitewash for centuries. They have been renewed and made permanent, and in this state bear witness of the artistic movement of the period, which had made its way from the West through Bohemia to Cracow. Such pictures, as the Mystic Press (illustration 48) , in the cloisters of the Franciscan Church, are rarely to be found anywhere else in the world. ”

“ To the side aisles are aggregated the fine chapels which were also distributed somewhat irregularly, in place of different parts of the Romanesque church; thus the southern tower (visible in illustration 19) was refashioned, and the ground floor of it was transformed into a chapel which was dedicated first to St. Stephen, then to St. John of Kenty. The clock tower on the north side is older than the dome itself, although its outward side, especially the upper part and the roofing, is baroque in style. ”

“ The considerable height of the interior gives to the whole a tall and imposing aspect. As for the pillars, it is in the Cathedral only that they are richly carved: everywhere else they are quite plain, and it is only above the arcades that a richer moulding begins. As regards the outward side, the brick buttresses, projecting very far, terminate either in tabernacle-like structures of stone (with which,
27. CALVARY, AT THE ENTRANCE OF ST. BARBARA'S CHURCH. however, they are not organically connected) or in mere bevel weatherings. Flying-buttresses do not appear. ”

“ It is not only in the domain of architecture, but in that of plastic art as well, that fifteenth-century Cracow exhibits a picture of stirring life. The building of the churches above enumerated and described is intimately connected with the development of sculpture ”

“ The walls of the choir are bordered above by a solid cornice with beautiful consoles cut in stone. Above this cornice there was formerly a gallery with pointed arches, and this was originally the upper termination of the walls. The slender threefold windows, which begin low down and reach high up, are terminated above by tracery and keystones with plastic ornaments. In 1384 the choir was entirely completed. The coloured glazing of the windows in the apse is for the most part of fourteenth and fifteenth century date. ”

“ These came from afar, together with the masonic lodge: they are the masters who created the figures and other heraldic and ornamental forms of medieval decoration on portals, capitals, consoles, and keystones. Their favourite line was the curve of the letter S. The mawkish faces of their statues are generally devoid of vivid expression, nor would the drapery allow the beauty of bodily forms to express itself. To this group belong the keystones of the Cathedral—representing in the naïve medieval manner the fight of St. ”

“ CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE. BAS-RELIEF.
(National Museum.)
(Vitus Sloss.) in originality, they often repeat their models without any deeper insight; yet the tradition has been preserved of a Cracow artist, named Wenceslaus, having painted the windows in St. Mark's Church at Florence. In the miniature paintings of this period we see various influences at work; all civilized countries contribute to enrich our collections. ”

“ In all the characteristic features of the picture we see the influence of the master's model.
Stanislas Durink, a miniaturist, was court painter to King Casimir Jagello from 1436 to 1486. His miniatures have been preserved in the archives of the Chapter. ”

“ The cathedral served as coronation church: the coronation of a Polish king is illustrated by a miniature (illustration 20) of the middle of the sixteenth century. A special feature of the act was the solemn penitential procession to the neighbouring Skalka where St. ”