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| Front page of the first issue of Sztuka i Artysta, January 1924 |
Cennino Cennini in 1924 Poland:
the Journal SZTUKA I ARTYSTA
Between Theory of Art and Commercial Promotion
1. The fortune of the 'Libro dell'Arte' in Poland is inextricably linked to the figure of Samuel Tyszkiewicz, who translated it into Polish with two editions in 1933 and 1934 (see Giovanni Mazzaferro. Cennino Cennini and 'The Book of Art': a Check-list of the Printed Editions Second Part: from 1901 to 1950). What role did however Cennino Cennini play in Polish cultural circles in the previous years?
2. To try grasping it, we will make a two-direction voyage in Polish history: we will first depart backwards from 1933 (year of publication of the first Polish translation by Tyszkiewicz) and go three steps back until end-1800, and then we will move again forward, to return from there to the decade directly preceding Tyszkiewicz's work.
3. The first stage backward takes us from 1933 to 1924, when the monthly journal 'Sztuka i artysta - malarstwo - rzeźba - zdobnictwo - kolekcjonerstwo' (Art and artist - painting - sculpture - ornaments- collections) is first published. The journal is published in Polish, but contains ample summaries in French. After you win the unequal battle with several different computer incompatibility problems, Java plugins to be installed and anti–virus software programmes to be uninstalled, (and various other minor problems), you will gain to the very ample digitization of the historical literary heritage escaped to the destruction of war, which Poland has made available to future generations through the internet. What was lost in Warsaw - after the total devastation of the war - is often remained intact in other university centres and public libraries. The entire magazine scanned Sztuka i artysta is available at http://katalog.pan.pl/webpac-bin/233biblitEN/wgbroker.exe?new+-access+top+search+open+NR+xx001094896
4. The first issue of the Sztuka i artysta contains - in two pages (page 21-22) - the translation of the first three chapters of the 'Libro dell'Arte', signed - with the initials M.St. – by the director of the journal, Mieczysław Sterling (1883-1945), an art critic and publicist. It is no coincidence that Sterling worked at a translation - however brief - from an Italian art source text. In the following years - and especially just before the Second World War – he will publish a series of monographs and numerous essays on the Italian Renaissance, along with other ones on Polish art (1). The war will make of him one of its numerous victims.
5. The translation of the three chapters is introduced by a few introductory lines: "On the Treaty Giorgio Vasari wrote: 'Cennino, the son of Andrea Cennini was born in Colle di Valdelsa, and learned painting by Agnolo. Driven by love for his art, he wrote with his own hand the book on how to paint frescoes and tempera, using glue and other mixtures, how to decorate books and all the techniques to gild. The manuscript is in the hands of the goldsmith Giuliano.' The book was terminated on 31 July 1437, unless the date included in the manuscript is wrong. It is the only source that has provided us with information on the techniques of the school of Giotto. Despite the ingenuity typical of his times - the aspiration for life in moral probity and holiness – he has come close achieving in his work visions typical of the Renaissance. We report the first chapters in translation."
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| Cennino Cennini's translation in Sztuka i Artysta, Issue 1, January 1924, page 21 |
6. The translation of the first three chapters of 'Book of the Art' - by the editor of the journal - has a clear programmatic nature. Obviously, it intends to offer a description of the central theme of the magazine: the interconnections between art (sztuka) and artist (artysta). Not by chance, these are the pages where Cennino on the one hand explains the concept of art ('fantasy' and 'operation of hand'), and on the other hand provides a strong ethical and religious view on the work of an artist.
7. In 1924, in fact, the interest of Sterling and his fellow companions was not for the Italian primitives by themselves, but for an artistic movement called in Polish Młoda Polska (the young Poland) (2). Writers, artists and musicians gathered around Młoda Polska between 1891 and 1918. Unlike similar movements in other regions of Europe (for example, Young Germany, Young Belgium, Young Scandinavia), Młoda Polska was really at the very centre of the national artistic debate and art production for thirty years. Born in the Austro-Hungarian partition of Poland (Cracow), it was an integral part of the movement of ideas within the Habsburg Empire that led to the Viennese Secession and the magazine Ver Sacrum founded by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and others in 1898. Młoda Polska was a modernist and symbolist movement, strongly veined of aesthetic, neo-romantic, decadent, anti-positivist and as we will see highly irreverent respects, quite surprising in a country with a strong Catholic imprint.
8. Sztuka i artysta comes out - it was said - in 1924, when the Młoda Polska movement had already ceased since a few years as an autonomous source of literary and artistic production. If the art movement had dissolved, however, the journal referred to it in many respects. First, the title: "Sztuka the artysta" was the motto of Młoda Polska (3). Second, just browse through the collection of the journal and you will realise that the real focus of attention is on Polish artists at the turn of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (although there are articles on Flemish painting and antiquities of value). Third, as will be seen later, the magazine was used to auction in Warsaw the works of the best artists of Młoda Polska (and, not coincidentally, also the works of the Flemish painters, carpets, ceramics, bronzes, etc.) .
9. It is now time to reach the second stage backwards: from 1924 to1921. Poland has just found its own political unity since a few years, after the end of the third partition (1795-1918). For thirty years Młoda Polska had been the bulwark of cultural and linguistic unity of Poland, as a response to cultural imperial pressure from Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary. But the culture reaction to the attained freedom of speech is to get rid of the old complexes and to accept the challenge of the new world. The movement of Nowa Sztuka (New Art) is born, futurist and cubist. Since then, Polish art will enter the trajectory of avant-garde. Objectively, this stage has nothing to do with Cennino.
10. The third step backwards brings us to the heart of the movement of Młoda Polska, the monthly magazine Życie (Life), published in Krakow under the control of the Austro-Hungarian censorship. Also pending solution of a few thousands IT problems (which may require infighting for a few days) the journal - which came out between 1897 and 1900, among innumerable misfortunes - is available in totality at http://mbc.malopolska.pl/publication/7149. It is one of the literary, artistic and musical myths of Poland. Contains the Confiteor manifest by Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927), with an obvious lexical reference to the Confiteor de l'Artiste by Charles Baudelaire (1869), but in reality most strongly influenced by Nietzsche. Przybyszewski was a complex personality and, in many ways, an extreme one (theorist of total sexuality and even Satanism), who had strong ties with the world of culture in Germany, France, Scandinavia and across Europe in general (for Italy, with D'Annunzio).
11. It is possible to do an electronic search, issue by issue, of the entire magazine Życie: you will not find a single reference to Cennini. If in 1924 a reference to Cennino had a programmatic value for a group that was referring to Młoda Polska, the original group of artists from 1897 to 1900 was very far from being inspired by him.
12. There was however an important relevant element that must be perhaps noted here: the concept of 'priesthood of art' (Kapłaństwo sztuki), where ‘priesthood’ is to be understood not in a sacred but a mystical sense: art as an unconditional mission, which the artist must undertake at any cost and ignoring the worldly needs. The sacerdoce de l'art is a very present theme in the culture of nineteenth-century Europe, starting with Flaubert: think to the ' sacred mission' of the musician, as mentioned in the writings of a Europe-wide reference figure such as Franz Liszt, who was also determining for the Polish culture.
13. We started from 1933 and went back to 1897, with cultural digressions until the entire second half of 1800. It is time to embark on our journey in the opposite direction, returning from end 1800 to the decade directly preceding Tyszkiewicz’s work.
14. To make the point on the role which Cennino Cennini had in discussions on art in the last years of the nineteenth century, we must honestly say that we did not find almost any (and possibly no) real interest in Poland for the 'Libro dell'Arte' at that time. Of course , the Viennese translation of Cennino by Ilg (1871) will have being circulated in the most cultivated circles of Krakow, but Ilg’s whole classicist (and Vasari based) reading of the 'Libro dell'Arte' as an 'obituary' of Gothic art will have most probably not been a source of inspiration to the cultural agitations of Młoda Polska. Quite different, for example, was the case of Hungary, where the Secession movement saw in a reference to Cennino’s painting techniques a major landmark in the history of the national art (see the experience of the art colony of Gödöllo in the decade preceding the First World War). Differently from Poland, in Hungary the movement of secession was oriented to the legacy of the Nazarenes and the Pre-Raphaelites, and had an unmistakable intimate and religious feature.
15. We are making now the first step towards the return to Tyszkiewicz’s time: in 1918 – once national unity is achieved - the experience of Młoda Polska stops, while in 1921 an artistic journey towards radical innovation starts. From Secession Poland will pass in a few months to Futurism and Cubism, to catch up with European art. All other manifestations of the European avant-garde will follow. Even less to do with Cennino, I fear.
16. And here is the second step of our march back to 1933: in 1924 a group of art critics - around the magazine Sztuka i artysta - rejects the avant-garde and tries to recover the ideas of the movement Młoda Polska. However, they need now a much less radical symbolism than the original one. Poland - no longer under the yoke of censorship of the three occupying empires - no longer needs an irreverent culture of radical dissent, to cast doubt on the values of the foreign dominant cultures. The editor of the magazine - a critic of art with a strong interest in Italian Renaissance - choose Cennino Cennini as a icon of a new - and old at the same time - symbiosis of Art and the Artist: a symbiosis rooted in medieval Catholicism, and not in excess of Nietzsche, who had proclaimed the death of God. Cennino - he recognises in the few introductory lines - has some limitations and has not yet fully reached maturity of Renaissance. Still, he is a pattern of artist which is much more in line with a society aiming at establishing its own decent identity with reference to the religious sentiment.
17. As you will see below, the choice may have perhaps been essentially a commercial one: one of the tasks of the Sztuka i artysta was to solicit a demand for art works to be auctioned, most likely to a middle class which needed reassuring references. So, avoiding any excess was of the essence. Reinventing Cennino as a symbol of a glorious Polish aesthetic and literary movement, however with a troubled past, did not present risks.
18. In this sense, we can appreciate why the editor of the Sztuka I artysta journal choose to include in the programmatic pages of the first issue, not only the first but also the second and the third chapters of Cennino’s Book, where the author speaks of the vocation and virtue of the artist in all-encompassing terms, in a blaze of moral and religious statements. Art becomes a duty, which must remain outside any economic interest (alas, the opposite of what the journal actually intends to do) and must be committed to pursuing love, fear, obedience and perseverance.
19. Reading Cennino as a sort of 'mystical naive' was a well-known topos in the literature of the early twentieth century, also in Poland (4). It has heavily funded roots, because it can be inspired by three lines of thought.
20. The first line of reference dates back to Ruskin - which Młoda Polska frequently referenced as an original source on inspiration - and his appreciation of the Gothic artist as a real 'craftsman' who feels to be part of a collective endeavour, and is inspired by a strong religious feeling. In Ruskin there isn't an explicit reference to Cennino, but a strong appreciation of the ability of medieval painters and their capacity to make collective use of artistic techniques.
21. The second source is from the early twentieth century, and has its origin in the letter by Auguste Renoir to Henry Mottez in 1911, which serves as a preface to the French edition of Cennino, published that year. In it Renoir - with a strongly conservative language - enhances the author of the ‘Book of the Art’ as a profoundly religious artist, hero of an era ‘when beauty had not yet betrayed the truth’. A parallel in the Germanic world is the translation of Cennino in German by the abbot Willibrord Verkade in 1914-1916, who stressed the Franciscan aspect of the life of the medieval painter and makes of Cennino a theorist of pictorial monasticism (5).
22. The third root is the constant tendency to associate Cennino Cennini with Theophilus Presbyter, the author of medieval Schedula diversarum artium, as well as with the many medieval recipe books on painting techniques. Theophilus was a real monk, and therefore Cennino was also awarded religious orders - so to speak – honoris causa.
23. In sum, the intellectual shift is the transition from a concept of "priesthood of the art" in an original form which is strongly characterized by offbeat themes to a concept of the "priesthood of the art" of a monk-like kind. Cennino is the champion of this passage: completely absent in the reflections originating Młoda Polska, he becomes the protagonist of an attempt to re-launch the aesthetics of that movement, in 1924.
24. The project of Sztuka i artysta failed, in every sense: it was no longer possible to turn back the clock of history and the time of Młoda Polska was now finished. There was no longer an active contemporary artistic production of that kind in Poland, which could feed a new aesthetic reflection in a creative sense. The new journal - which was released only in six issues (January-June 1924) - could not be any longer the hearth around which a crowd of young artists would warm up their hearts to seek their national cultural identity.
25. Here some of the fundamental reasons for the ambiguity of the project become evident. Sztuka i artysta was undoubtedly a serious journal of art critic, with important cultural ambitions, and still widely cited. At the same time, however, the journal was an expanded version of the catalogue of a major auction house in Warsaw: the Dom Sztuki (Hôtel des Ventes ) - (House of Art - auction house) (6).
26. Part of the role of the journal was to create interest in the works to be sold: in other words, it was really advertising. The auctions were held fortnightly and the monthly journal was due to motivate the interest of buyers and document market price performances. This is an explicit goal, as displayed in a few lines in French, published in the first issue of the journal, perhaps to create interest among buyers from abroad.
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| Ul. Chnielna 5 in Warsaw, the seat of the Grand Hotel Garni (built in 1894-95), which hosted the auction house Dom Sztuki (Hôtel des Ventes) Source http://www.warszawa1939.pl/index.php?r1=chmielna_5&r3=0 |
26. Part of the role of the journal was to create interest in the works to be sold: in other words, it was really advertising. The auctions were held fortnightly and the monthly journal was due to motivate the interest of buyers and document market price performances. This is an explicit goal, as displayed in a few lines in French, published in the first issue of the journal, perhaps to create interest among buyers from abroad.
27. “The exhibitions of ancient and modern art held at the "Dom Sztuki" (Hôtel des Ventes) in Warsaw - 5 Chmielna street - every fortnight. Each exhibition is followed by an auction. In January sales will be held on 10, 11, 24 and 25, in February on 7, 8, 21 and 22. Different artefacts are on display at "Dom Sztuki" like ancient and modern paintings, miniatures, prints, porcelain and bronzes, crystal, carpets and other fabrics, jewellery, furniture etc. - For the moment these are the paintings of masters of modern Polish painting that are our focus: they include paintings by Jacek Malczewski , Waclaw Szymanowski (painter and sculptor) , Tadeusz Pruszkowski, Alfred Wierusz - Kowalski, Władysław Podkowiński etc., watercolours and designs by Leon . Wyczółkowski, Władysław Skoczylas and Prof. Stanislas Noakowski whose exhibition in London at the Royal Academy in 1921 was a great success. Ancient art is represented by Flemish painters (XVII century). A selection of objects art (bronzes, porcelains X -III century etc.) and a rich collection of Persian carpets add to the exposure a curious and picturesque tone. We will inform our readers in every issue of our journal on the exhibitions at the "Dom Sztuki" and the current sales.”
28. The much- abused charge of 'oportunizm' - that was echoed many times as a terrible justification of political processes and the Stalinist purges, also in Poland - perhaps in this case would be really justified: we can therefore speak of an 'opportunistic use' of the Cennino’s translation.
29. What went wrong? Why publications of the journal were suspended after only six months? Perhaps the difficult cohabitation between cultural ambitions and commercial purposes proved unsustainable, and scholars withdrew indignantly. Maybe the public did not show any interest for the old masters who had made the glory of Polish painting thirty to forty years before, and the auction house had to quickly focus on other styles, to avoid running into financial risks (the French text just mentioned, justifying the focus on modern Polish painting, not surprisingly begins with the words 'pour le moment'). Perhaps the costs of the monthly journal became prohibitive, forcing the owners to close it, among many debts. Maybe the economic crisis in 1924 weighed, as Poland was forced to introduce a draconian monetary reform that year and introduced the new currency złoty, to reign in the hyperinflation that - after the First World War - had taken over not only in the neighbouring Weimar Republic. The fact is that the auction house continued to exist (1925-1926 catalogues of the libraries are accessible online), but the magazine remained only in the memory of art critics (7). In conclusion - to use modern terms - Cennino commercials did not pay out.
30. The ability to research electronically through Polish digital libraries revealed, however, numerous references to Cennino in the magazines of those years, even if - in truth - neither extensive nor particularly original ones (they are largely articles on high quality craftsmanship ) (8) . There were, however, neither monographs nor surveys of that time dedicated to Cennino.
31. We have tried to ‘rebuild’ a framework picture on Cennino Cennini’s fortune in the Polish cultural circles in the decades preceding the Polish translations by Samuel Tyszkiewicz in 1933-1934. We focused on a specific event in 1924, and tried to understand in full the context in which it took place. We have not yet found any evidence of Tyszkiewicz’s participation in those debates. We know that he moved to Italy in 1926 – together with his wife, an art historian – and that he began there his activity of high-quality typographer targeting bibliophiles. In his translations and publications of the Book of Art in Florence first (1933) and Warsaw later on (1934) there is no trace of any debate on Cennino Cennini in Poland. To that Polish debate do not refer either Adolfo Venturi or Mary Pittaluga, who are hosted in the Polish translations, the first with an introductory letter and the second with a longer introduction. Both Venturi and Pittaluga belong, moreover, in a world far away to Młoda Polska.
32. Why did the translation of the Book of the Art by Tyszkiewicz completely ignore the terms of the aesthetic discussion in their own country? We know that Tyszkiewicz fell in love with Florence and Italy. We know that he saw in his work as an editor and a printer the ideal continuation of Italian humanism. He may perhaps have wanted to knowingly break any continuity with the line of the national debate on Cennino, offering the Polish public a complete translation of the mediaeval text intentionally inspired by the idea of a Cennino Cennini as a precursor of Italian humanism. Perhaps, it is even easier to think that he did not aim at contributing to the aesthetics interpretation of the Book, but choose to translate and publish that title only in the perspective of a high quality typographer, who hoped to attract the attention of Polish bibliophiles.
33. This note is the result of research conducted largely online. The sources are cited in the notes below. Obviously, any contribution, even critical, is welcome.
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[1] For a
number of works by Mieczysław Sterling see https://www.google.de/search?hl=de&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Mieczys%C5%82aw+Sterling%22
2 A number of essential surveys (in Polish) on
Młoda Polska are available at http://mloda-polska.klp.pl/
.
3 Magda Głowala , Rola sztuki the artysty w
programach i utworach Młodej Polski - The Role of Art and Artist in programs
and works of the Young Poland http://www.bryk.pl/wypracowania/j%C4%99zyk_polski/m%C5%82oda_polska/2094-rola_sztuki_i_artysty_w_programach_i_utworach_m%C5%82odej_polski.html
4 See Tadeusz Ewaryst Jaroszynski , Malarstwa
Polskiego Album - Album de l'Art Polonaise , M. Arcta editions 1913 : "Flipping
the regulations of the [mediaeval Polish art] corporations, it is, in fact,
surprising at what point the taste of art, the noble conscience to exercise
priesthood, the need to devote himself to sacrifice to the cause of art are
missing. One will search in vain for traces of this passionate exaltation,
which is expressed so eloquently, through the infinite naivety and simplicity
of the sentence, in the Treatise on painting by Cennino Cennini, a Florentine
master painter of the fifteenth century."
5 On this ' Franciscan ' reading of Cennino,
it is worth reading the writings of Margaret of Ayala " “Gli «scopi pratici moderni» del Libro
dell’arte di Cennino Cennini: le edizioni primonovecentesche di Herringham,
Renoir, Simi e Verkade” (The ' practical modern purposes " the Book of
the art by Cennino Cennini: the editions in the first years of the nineteenth
century by Herringham, Renoir, Simi and Verkade) in "Paragone', a. LVI ,
third series, no. 64 (669) , Nov. 2005, p. 71-91 , http://www.academia.edu/2969766/Gli_scopi_pratici_moderni_del_Libro_dellarte_di_Cennino_Cennini_le_edizioni_primonovecentesche_di_Herringham_Renoir_Simi_e_Verkade_in_Paragone_Arte_a._LVI_terza_serie_n._64_669_novembre_2005_pp._71-91
6 The Polish Library in Paris indicates that
the journal is a continuation of the bulletin of the auction house, published
between 1921 and 1923
7 The auction house has continued to exist
after the termination of the magazine: the 1925 catalogue is available at http://books.google.de/books/about/Katalog_rycin_polskich_ze_zbior%C3%B3w_hr_I.html?id=l5hmtwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
The same in
1926 https://www.google.de/search?tbm=bks&hl=de&q=Dom+Sztuki+#hl=de&q=Dom+Sztuki+(Hotel+des+Ventes)+1926+Chmielna+5&tbm=bks.
8 Przemysł Rzemiosło Sztuka ( Arts & Crafts )
, 1924 , No. 1, Huculska wykładanka w drzewie , objects in wood of the Hutsul
region , p.12 , 1925 N. 4 Malarskie Techniki Monumentalne , monumental painting
techniques , p . 6; Rzeczy Piękne ( beautiful things ), X , 1931 N. 1-3 ,
Tadeusz Seweryn , Obrazki eglomizowane w miejskiem muzeum przemysłowem w
Krakowie , Pictures of decorated glass in the Industrial Museum of Krakow, p.31
.
ALL THE POSTS PUBLISHED IN THE CENNINI'S SERIES
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