Why is Poland going nuts for 19th century artist Józef Chełmoński?
And why are we talking about him? Outside of Poland, Chełmoński isn't a well-known artist by any stretch. In Poland, however, he's currently the focus of renewed focus on his realist work.
What's that based on? This week, the Warsaw National Museum, one of Poland's biggest museums, announced that their Józef Chełmoński exhibition had broken attendance records. Over the weekend, queues snaked down the street outside the museum as the exhibition's four-month run recorded a footfall of more than 170,000 people.
That's a lot of people! Exactly. It smashes the museum's previous record made by the 143,000 people who attended its 2023 exhibition of Pablo Picasso.
Picasso? I've heard of him at least… That's pretty much why we're talking about Chełmoński. Belonging to the Realism artistic movement that flourished in the late 19th century, Chełmoński has far less international renown than artists like French modernist Édouard Manet. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't know about him!
What should I know about him? Chełmoński was born in the village of Boczki in 1849. Under 100km from Warsaw, the village was in a Russian controlled area. He experienced life entirely during the era of Partitioned Poland, dying before Poland gained its independent statehood following the First World War.
How did that timeframe inform his historical importance? Although throughout his life, Chełmoński travelled throughout Europe, including Germany, Ukraine, Austria, France and Italy, the subject of his art most frequently returned to the humble realities of rustic Polish life. From a studio in Warsaw in 1874, Chełmoński created some of the key works in what's considered the birth of Polish realism.
Was he beloved in Poland at the time? Not exactly, it was only when he moved to Paris in 1875 that his portrayals of Polish ruralism were appreciated. Through his fame in Paris, he was able to move back to Poland in 1887 where he bought a farm and became a national icon. It was in these years that he produced some of his most famous works, such as 'Storks' in 1900.
Why is Polish ruralism still popping off? For many Poles, Chełmoński realistic idylls harks back to a simpler time, before the Second World War, the Soviet era and the strife of modernism. Speaking to TVP World, Warsaw National Museum curator Wojciech Głowacki said: 'He painted landscapes, animals… This resonates with our need to be close to nature. There's also a nostalgia in his work, he shows us a world that no longer exists. Furthermore, he was a very keen observer and it is these observational skills that allow us to travel back in time.'
Was this the theme of the exhibition? With a huge array of works by Chełmoński, the exhibition in Warsaw is one of the most comprehensive looks ever at the artist. In their own words, he was 'a chronicler of everyday village life, an artist fascinated by horses, their beauty, character, the lively dynamics of movement, and finally as a sensitive observer of nature, who also notices the spiritual, religious and mystical dimension of its existence.'
How can I see his work then? The Józef Chełmoński exhibition ended over the weekend in Warsaw, but it has plans to travel across Poland. First it's set for a time in Poznan before heading to Kraków. So it's time to look up flights/trains and get yourself down to see the finest in Polish realist art.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
6 hours ago
- Euronews
Windcraft Festival: the musical feast that celebrates wind instruments
The Windcraft Music Fest, the celebration of wind instruments, took place for the eleventh time in Katydata, the beautiful village on Mount Troodos in Cyprus. The event marries tradition with jazz and contemporary sound, bringing together musicians and bands not only from Cyprus but also from the rest of Europe. There were many foreign musical acts participating in this year's 11th Windcraft Music Fest. 30-year-old Robinson Khoury is one of the most interesting young voices in French jazz. In 2024, he was awarded the prestigious Django Reinhardt Prize as the best jazz musician in France. Renowned for his virtuosity on the trombone and his comfort with improvisation, Khoury has collaborated with great artists such as Ibrahim Maalouf, Natacha Atlas, and Quincy Jones. His latest project, titled "MŸA," explores his Lebanese roots. He combines jazz with Middle Eastern scales, ancient musical traditions, wordless vocals, and electronic soundscapes. At Windcraft Music Fest, he came to present it with his trio, consisting of Anisha Neari and Leo Zashef. "I wanted it to be something really special. with musical instruments that we had never seen together before. So I wanted there to be a musical trio because the chemistry is really unique. This project is about ancient musical traditions, but also about electronic music, which represents the timbres we don't know, which are perhaps forgotten," the French musician tells euronews. The Oratnitza group is made up of five young Bulgarian musicians who share a love for both Bulgarian tradition and contemporary music genres, with an emphasis on bass. For this reason, they call their unique sound "ETHNOBASS." The band members met 16 years ago in a park, jamming. Soon they took to the stage, impressing with their danceable sounds. In Cyprus, they presented compositions from their fourth album, which will be released soon and is titled "The Guardian." "We play Bulgarian traditional music, which we combine with some other contemporary music styles, such as drum and bass, dubstep, and even jazz. Honestly, these are the kinds of music we like and listen to; we like to mix them with Bulgarian traditional music," says Georgi "Jorge" Simeonov, and Christian Georgiev adds, "We have the djediridou, which is an ancient woodwind instrument that has a bass, and we add more bass from synthesizers, and we mix it with acoustic instruments and traditional singing." Windcraft Music Fest is more than just a concert series. It's a living testament to the richness that comes from collaborations between people who have never worked together before. It reveals the talents of both local and international artists, with a special emphasis on wind instruments. At the same time, through workshops, activities, and other activities, participants of all ages are invited to take part in the process of musical creation and explore the rich cultural heritage of the village and the surrounding area.
Euronews
3 days ago
- Euronews
Film of the Week: Luc Besson's ‘Dracula: A Love Tale' - Fangtastic?
Mere months after Robert Eggers returned vampires to their Gothic roots with Nosferatu, his stylish exhumation of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, it's now Luc Besson's turn to sharpen his fangs. "I'm not a fan of horror films," the French filmmaker recently told Le Parisien newspaper about his take, Dracula: A Love Tale, which straddles several centuries in the life of the immortal and cinematically ubiquitous blood-sucking count. "Nor of Dracula." Ah. That doesn't bode well, does it? Or maybe it's exactly what we didn't know we needed. Based on the original book by Bram Stoker, Besson focuses on Dracula's search for the reincarnation of his late wife. He kicks things off in Romania, 1480. Pillow fights, food fights, plenty of steamy sex... Prince Vladimir the Second (Caleb Landry Jones) and Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu) are two fusional lovebirds who are passionately into each other. Vlad gets called to war and after a rushed and poorly filmed fight sequence, he accidentally kebabs his beloved in a snowy field of wolf traps. He was trying to save her from an attacker, you see. Not trying to spice things up further. 'Tell God to send her back to me,' he pleads to the priest, who he promptly impales for failing to send the message in a timely manner to the Almighty. Renouncing God on the spot, Vlad is cursed, condemned to wander the centuries. 400 years later, in Paris, Christoph Waltz (a nameless man of the clergy referred to as 'Priest' but may as well be Professor Abraham Van Helsing) is called upon for a delicate case, featuring Maria (Matilda De Angelis). Her apparent sexual appetite is initially dismissed as hysteria by French doctors. However, he quickly deduces that she's a vampire, turned by her 'master' who is on the hunt for the reincarnation of his beloved. 'Sometimes pure souls can be reincarnated'. Not sure how 'pure' considering the religious morals of the time - not to mention the copious amount of fornication and food waste in the film's first act - but we make do. Before you know it, the damned and inconsolable prince, now a reclusive in his gloomy chateau populated with GCI gargoyles that may as well be Minimoy rejects, gets a lifeline. The escaped Maria may have found his princess... Her name is Mina (Bleu again), and she could be the reincarnation of his dead wife. Now looking like a boiled testicle, Vlad rejuvinates himself with some human Claret and sets out to win her over. But if he's condemned to eternal life, and therefore eternal suffering, that's not the sort of divine punishment one easily shakes off... A lovelorn incarnation of the famous vampire isn't as new as Besson seems to think it is. After all, Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula was billed as a love story, and since then, romantic devotion has always been a driving force in Bram Stoker adaptations. Indeed, this story has always been about a cursed man waiting hundreds of years to see again the only woman he has ever loved. It has always been the ultimate love story. Still, Besson colon-and-bills it 'A Love Tale' and... It's a royal mess. But a damn entertaining royal mess. Incapable of injecting tension or drawing out the horror from the story, Besson chooses to tell the tale of doomed love through the lens of a heightened fairytale. The director throws everything he has at it: tragedy, action, OTT melodrama, Danny Elfman's comically grandiose score, sexy magical elixirs, a Guillermo del Toro-esque carnival sequence, and a surprising amount of comedy. Yes, Dracula: A Love Tale is funny. Not Dracula: Dead And Loving It funny; rather, a film excelling at cartoonish and overripe comedy through committed performances by Landry Jones and his channelling of his inner Gary Oldman, the always terrific Waltz (whose delivery of the line 'She's alive. Clinically speaking' is fangtastic), and stealth MVP Matilda De Angelis. There is the niggling sense that the humour in this tonal hodgepodge is completely accidental, but it still lands. And the biggest joke of all is that this version is missing Gothic horror. Blasphemy for purists – and understandably so. For a film about the most notorious and celebrated Gothic figure in literature, a noticeable dearth of Gothic horror feels like heresy. However, in failing to create a serious meditation on love and salvation versus damnation, Besson may have inadvertently crafted a camp romp with Dracula: A Love Tale. Especially when considering the hilariously abrupt ending which has Waltz's Priest coming out of Vlad's castle and casually declaring: 'The spell is broken, everything is fine now.' CUT TO BLACK. TITLE CARD. THE END. Comedy gold. Intentional or no. So, while Dracula: A Love Tale doesn't inject too much fresh blood into the vampire myth, what it does is special. Egger's meticulous-to-a-mannered-fault approach may have been stunning, but Nosferatu ran the risk of alienating pre-existing fans yearning for less familiarity. When it comes to Besson, he risks alienating viewers for MANY other reasons. But get on his wavelength and again, accidentally or no, this may be the fated-to-be-hated high camp masterpiece of 2025. Alive and loving it. Dracula: A Love Tale is out in French cinemas now. It hits theatres in South America this month and is scheduled for release in other European territories like Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain in October.
Local France
3 days ago
- Local France
French Phrase of the Day: Mettre un tunnel
Why do I need to know mettre un tunnel? Because everyone can relate to finding themselves in this unfortunate position. What does it mean? Mettre un tunnel - roughly pronounced meh-truh uhn too-nel - translates as 'to place a tunnel', as the word tunnel means the same in English as it does in French. Construction workers might use this phrase literally to discuss an upcoming tunnelling project, but the expression has a symbolic meaning too. Mettre un tunnel is French slang for being trapped in a conversation with someone who speaks so incessantly that you cannot get a word in. Advertisement As this phenomenon is fairly common, there are quite a few French blogs and articles instructing young people on how to avoid tunnels . When it comes to using the expression, there are several variations to choose from, as it is evolving and is almost exclusively used amongst young people. If you are complaining about the other person's behaviour, you would say Il m'a mis un tunnel (He trapped me in a conversation.) You might also hear people turn tunnel into a verb by saying tunneliser quelqu'un or il m'a tunnelisé. On the other hand, you can complain about being trapped in a 'tunnel' by saying j'ai pris un tunnel (I got caught in a long conversation). You can also just refer to any long, unending monologue as un tunnel. If you were the one who could not stop talking, you might message your friend the next day and say Désolée pour le tunnel d'hier soir. J'avais vraiment besoin de parler (Sorry for the long monologue last night. I needed to talk.) While the expression is relatively new, its origins are not entirely clear. It may come from the world of theatre in the mid-20th century. At the time, French actors and playwrights referred to a monologue where the speaker suffered some form of memory lapse. There are other tunnel-related French expressions too. For instance, 'the light at the end of the tunnel' has the same meaning in French, translating as la lumière au bout du tunnel. Use it like this Il m'a mis un tunnel, mec. J'ai été coincé à écouter son nouveau régime de protéines toute la soirée. - He trapped me in this unending conversation, mate. I was stuck there listening to him talk about his new protein diet all night C'est ouf que j'ai pris un tunnel hier soir. Je voulais parler à tout le monde, mais Axelle avait vraiment besoin de s'exprimer sur sa rupture. - It's wild I got stuck in that unending conversation last night. I wanted to talk to everyone, but Axelle really needed to talk about her breakup.
