1831 -1901 · Warsaw, Tatras and construction of a Polish school

Clear mountains, observed peoples and national histories make Wojciech Gerson an essential painter, educator and organizer of Polish art.

Wojciech Gerson was born in Warsaw in 1831 and died there in 1901. He began with architecture at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts before choosing painting from Jan Feliks Piwarski, Chrystian Breslauer and Marcin Zaleski. With young artists gathered around Marcin Olszyÿski, he traveled on foot through several regions of Poland, Lithuania and Mazovia. Drawings, costumes and social types collected during these trips nourished the lithographic album Ubiory ludu polskiego and established his conviction that national art must start from a concrete observation of the country. Gerson continued his training at the Academy of Saint Petersburg then stayed in Paris, where he worked with Léon Cogniet. Back in Warsaw, he painted landscapes, portraits, religious subjects and vast historical compositions. His interest in Polish history is not reduced to heroic illustration. Landless evokes the tragic displacement of the Slavic populations of Pomerania under the pressure of Germanic conquests. The landscape, the human group and the fatigue of the bodies give the medieval episode a contemporary political resonance in a Poland then shared between several empires. His landscape, the human group and the fatigue of the bodies give the medieval episode a contemporary political resonance in a Poland then shared between several empires. His most innovative contribution perhaps appears in the landscape. From trips to the Podhale and the Tatras, Gerson observes the massifs, torrents, boulders and clarity specific to mountain air. Landscape of the Tatras combines geological precision, luminous space and freedom of touch, at a distance from conventional academic decor. Gerson is also an illustrator, art critic, theorist and organizer of Warsaw cultural life. As a professor in the Drawing Class, he trains several generations, including Józef Chełmoÿski, Leon Wyczółkowski, Władysław Podkowiÿski and Józef Pankiewicz. His teaching emphasizes drawing, the study of nature and the cultural responsibility of the artist. Between realism, academicism and patriotism, his work links direct knowledge of the territory to the ambition to build a visual memory polish. The "Wojciech Gerson" selection notably compares Landless and Landscape of the Tatras. Its reading favors atmosphere.

Gerson travels the country before painting it: mountain, costume and history must first become an observed experience.