Nieukończony obraz Szczęsnego Morawskiego „Przeproszenie Zebrzydowskiego” – między koncepcją malarstwa historycznego a trudami jej realizacji

Abstrakt

The subject of discussion is a painting by Szczesny Morawski, a painter from Lviv from the middle of the 19th century, entitled Zebrzydowski’s Apology – currently lost, and probably never finished. In the collection of the Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine there are four sketches of this composition from the former collection of Aleksander Batowski, which allow (along with source materials – letters, author’s own notes, memoirs of people from his circle and press reports) to at least partially reconstruct the concept of the artist and the process of creating the work. The analysis is carried out in the context of Morawski’s theoretical statement on his vision of historical painting as closely linked to scientific and archaeological research. The final goal of the article is an attempt to explain the reasons why the painting work on this composition was stopped. This was probably related to the negative reception of the artist’s paintings, the arduousness of artistic technique and the evolution of Morawski’s interests towards writing and historical activity