The paintings in the chapels of the Camaldolese church in Bielany and its significance for the Krakow art in the 1st half of the 17th century (the Royal Chapel and St Romuald's Chapel)

The enormous significance of the Bielany hermitage in the history of Polish art of the transition period between Mannerism and Baroque has long been rightly acknowledged. However, such appreciation concerns primarily architecture and decorations (stuccoes), and to a lesser extent paintings. Studies on the Polish art of the 1st half of the 17th century have repeatedly mentioned the paintings in the Bielany chapels, albeit they were mostly limited to the statement that some decorations are the work of Venetian painter Tommaso Dolabella and his followers (paintings in the Royal and St Romuald's Chapels) and illustrate, as it were, the artist's 'decline', who, having arrived in Poland in the late 17th century, in time abandoned the glorious tradition of the grand Venetian school of the Mannerism epoch, lowered the standard of his artistic output and in a way became "Sarmatised", catering to the taste and expectations of the locals. The authorship of the paintings in the two most prominent chapels of the Bielany church was attributed to Dolabella, his students and followers. The thesis of "Sarmatisation" and the lowering of standards in his work has recently been critically analysed, as the artist's authenticated works from the Royal Chapel have been referred to and "vindicated".

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.