Stanisław Wyspiański, WIDOK NA KOPIEC KOŚCIUSZKI, 1904

41.7 x 27.4cm - pastel, paper Signed at lower edge: SW | 1904 (tied monogram)


Provenance: The drawing comes from the Cracow collection of Prof. Karol Estreicher's family.


The drawing is connected to the famous series of pastel Views of the Kosciuszko Mound captured from the window of Wyspiański's studio in his apartment at 57 Krowoderska Street (now 79). Forced by doctors to stay at home during the winter of 1904/1905, the artist created more than a dozen landscapes featuring the Kosciuszko Mound. This series was honored in 1905 by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wyspianski was persuaded to paint these pictures by the well-known critic and collector Feliks Jasienski, who, while visiting the ailing artist, pointed out the landscape stretching outside the windows and - citing the example of Claude Monet and his series of views of Rouen Cathedral - suggested the idea of painting this landscape at different times of day, weather and lighting. In the Raptularz of the artist, for whom any change in weather or light was worth noting - noting and transferring to paper - we read: The drawing is linked to the famous series of pastel Views of the Kosciuszko Mound captured from the window of Wyspianski's studio in his apartment at 57 Krowoderska Street (now 79). Forced by doctors to stay at home during the winter of 1904/1905, the artist created more than a dozen landscapes featuring the Kosciuszko Mound. This series was honored in 1905 by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wyspianski was persuaded to paint these pictures by the well-known critic and collector Feliks Jasienski, who, while visiting the ailing artist, pointed out the landscape stretching outside the windows and - citing the example of Claude Monet and his series of views of Rouen Cathedral - suggested the idea of painting this landscape at different times of day, weather and lighting. In the Raptularz of the artist, for whom any change in weather or light was worth noting - noting and transferring to paper - we read:



1904 1905

December 8: I draw a landscape (rain) January 25: I draw a landscape from the window

December 9: I draw a landscape (snow fell at night) January 26: I draw a landscape

December 10: I draw a landscape (in the afternoon) January 27: I draw a landscape from the window

December 11: I draw a landscape (in the morning) January 28: I draw a landscape from the window

December 12: I draw a landscape (in the afternoon)

December 13: I draw a landscape "Sun"

December 14: I draw a landscape


(Letters of Stanisław Wyspiański. Miscellaneous - to many addressees, ed. by M. Rydlowa, Cracow 1998, pp. 381-384)


The pastels from the series Views of the Kosciuszko Mound are currently scattered in both museum collections and private collections. Their exact number is not known. It is estimated at fifteen to twenty paintings, although Feliks Jasieński, for example, who considered himself the "godfather" of the series, wrote about as many as forty. Each of them is a separate composition. However, they are united by a motif (Kosciuszko Mound) and the same place of observation (the window of the artist's studio), they differ in the variable treatment of the subject: a raised or lowered horizon, shifting of the frame, different light intensity and weather conditions.

The presented landscape is maintained in a narrow range of colors. The artist broke the blurred patches of blue and white with black silhouettes of trees and the line of the railroad embankment crossing the composition in the central part. In addition to purely painterly values, one can also find symbolic content in this painting. This landscape does not refer only to calendar winter and the end of the year. Locked inside four walls, Wyspianski became a prisoner of his disease. An incurable disease that was soon to bring an end to his life.

The bibliography on the cycle of Views of Kosciuszko Mound is very extensive; the most complete set of it can be found in the catalog:

- Like a Meteor... Stanisław Wyspiański (1869-1907). To the Artist on the 100th Anniversary of his Death (ed. E. Charazinska), cat. of the exhibition of works from the collection of the MNW, Warsaw 2007, pp. 150-157.