Witold Pruszkowski

Witold Pruszkowski (* 1846 in Bershad in today's Ukraine, † 1896 in Budapest) was a Polish painter.

Life

Spent his youth in Odessa and Kiev Pruszkowski. Later he went to Dieppe and Paris, where he studied under the portrait painter Tadeusz Gorecki ( a son Adam Mickiewicz ) received a first Malausbildung. He continued his studies from 1869 to 1872 at the Munich Academy under Professors Alexander Strähuber and Hermann Anschütz continue. As a result he studied until 1876 at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts under Jan Matejko.

In 1882 Pruszkowski moved into the village Mników in Krakow; Here he concentrated on painting and created many of his peasant genre painting. 1890, the artist took several trips to the Ukraine and with his brother to Italy, Algeria and Tunisia.

In his last years he was sick. After he was gone without a word from home, he was found at the station in Budapest, two days later he died in a local hospital.

His paintings have been exhibited internationally, as in Berlin, Chicago (1893, he received a silver medal here ) and Paris. Works by Pruszkowski are today in many Polish museums; the most comprehensive collections possess the National Museums in Krakow and Warsaw. His best-known painting is the work " In exile in Siberia" (Polish: Na zesłanie w Sybir ), also called " The march to Siberia " (Polish: na Pochod Sybir ) called - see picture on the right. The approximately 1893 resulting plant is located in the Lviv Art Gallery.

Work

Pruszkowski painted with oil and pastel, sometimes he made pencil drawings. In his works, the influence of French painting, as she represented Édouard Manet, recognizable. Also elements of painting by Arnold Böcklin find entrance. First, he painted portraits, but soon devoted himself already the mythical. He raved about the world of myths and folktales, a corresponding number of his paintings fantastic scenes whose realistic habit dominate romantic elements. A second group of his works are genre paintings from the life of villagers from the area around Krakow. His landscapes are similar to those by Jean -Baptiste Camille Corot.

Later, the sound symbolism in his work. Here the painter borrows motifs from the works of Polish Romantic poet Juliusz Słowacki like ( " Anhelli " ) or Zygmunt Krasinski ( " Przedswit "). Pruszkowski is considered a pioneer of painting the modernist movement of the Young Poland.