The Franciscan Church in Kraków ranks among the city’s most valuable historical monuments. However, its exceptional value lies not in its medieval origins, but in its much more recent Art Nouveau interiors designed by Stanisław Wyspiański. The polychromes and stained-glass windows, created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, transformed the Gothic church into a spectacle of light, colour and symbolism. It is here that the most complete realisation of the artistic ideas of this outstanding figure of Young Poland was created.
The Franciscan Church in Kraków and the fire
The church’s Art Nouveau interior would never have been created had it not been for a terrible tragedy that befell the city. In July 1850, a massive fire swept through Kraków, destroying over 150 buildings. The fire also reached the Franciscan complex on All Saints’ Square. The roofs of the church and monastery, the vaults and the interior decorations were destroyed or damaged. Numerous paintings, liturgical objects, documents and archives relating to the history of the order were irretrievably lost. The reconstruction of the burnt-out monument was entrusted to the architect Karol Kremer, who restored the church to its Gothic appearance. The interiors, however, were left relatively plain, with no clear plan for their redesign. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the Franciscans invited the young Stanisław Wyspiański to collaborate with them. At the time, the artist did not know that he was about to begin creating the work of his life.
Stanisław Wyspiański: an artist of many talents
Stanisław Wyspiański was born in 1869 in Kraków. Today he is remembered above all as one of the most outstanding figures of the Young Poland era. He was a painter, poet, playwright, graphic artist, set designer and interior designer. He studied under Jan Matejko at the Kraków School of Fine Arts, and subsequently developed his skills in Paris. He was fascinated by medieval monuments, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. In his work, he sought to create a vision where painting, architecture, decoration and light form a unified and complete whole. The Franciscan Church, damaged by fire, proved to be the ideal place to realise these ambitions.
Gothic walls overrun by flowers
Work on the polychromes began in 1895. Instead of the biblical scenes and images of saints popular at the time, the artist covered the walls and vaults of the church with magnificent floral motifs. He drew his inspiration from the local natural world. The decorations feature irises, lilies, poppies, sunflowers, cornflowers, pansies and marsh marigolds. However, the flowers do not resemble a botanical atlas. They have been transformed into dynamic ornaments, typical of the Art Nouveau style popular at the time. They climb the walls, entwine the ribs of the vaults and create a fairy-tale garden within the interior of a medieval church. Wyspiański complemented his bold vision with intense blues, turquoises, purples, greens, reds and golden yellows.
The Franciscan Church in Kraków and Wyspiański’s Art Nouveau
Stained-glass designs were created alongside the polychrome work. Between 1897 and 1899, coloured glass panels filled the large windows of the chancel, depicting St Francis of Assisi, Blessed Salomea and a series inspired by the elements. The artist took a very bold approach to interpreting water, fire, earth and air, constructing compositions of light, colour and dynamism. Many art historians see in them a foreshadowing of the trends that later developed in abstract art. The stained-glass windows were made from hand-coloured glass at the renowned Tiroler Glasmalerei workshop in Innsbruck. The individual elements were cut, painted with special paints, fired, and then joined together with lead profiles. This gives the windows an extraordinary depth.
“God the Father – Let there be!”
The culmination of the artist’s entire project was the stained-glass window “God the Father – Let there be!”, completed in 1904 and situated in the huge window just above the choir. Here, Wyspiański broke with the traditional depiction of the Creator as a peaceful old man seated on a throne. Instead, he depicted a figure full of energy, movement and strength. Outstretched arms, billowing robes and swirling lines create an image of the moment of the creation of the world. Colourful rays streaming into the church dance across the walls and floor, transforming the entire interior into a living work of art. It is precisely this unity of architecture, polychromy, stained glass and light that makes the building today the most complete realisation of the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or ‘total work of art’. Wyspiański died in 1907, aged just 38. He left behind a jewel of Polish Art Nouveau and one of the most outstanding achievements of modern sacred art in the whole of Europe.
Source: mnk.pl, pieknykrakow.pl
Read also:Interesting facts|Monument|Kraków | Art Nouveau|Architecture in Poland | Sacred architecture
