1856 -1942 · Krakow, Polish cavalry and military memory

Launched horses, battle smoke and dazzling uniforms make Wojciech Kossak the great director of Polish military history.

Wojciech Kossak was born in Paris in 1856 and died in Krakow in 1942. He belongs to an artistic dynasty which had a profound impact on Polish culture: his father Juliusz Kossak was already famous for his watercolors of horses and military scenes. Raised in Krakow in the family house-workshop, Wojciech learned equine anatomy, movement and the memory of national insurrections very early on. He studied at the Krakow School of Fine Arts with Władysław huszczkiewicz, then in Munich, where history painting and battle realism brought him a more dramatic construction. He studied at the Krakow School of Fine Arts with Władysław huszczkiewicz, then in Munich, where history painting and battle realism brought him a more dramatic construction. He studied at the Krakow School of Fine Arts with Władysław huszczkiewicz, then in Munich, where history painting and battle realism brought him a more dramatic construction. He studied at the Krakow School of Fine Arts with Władysław huszczkiewicz, then in Munich, where history painting and battle realism brought him a more dramatic construction. He studied at the Krakow School of Fine Arts with Wł cavalry maneuvers. Kossak then worked between Krakow, Vienna, Paris, Berlin and the United States, responding to numerous commissions for equestrian portraits and historical scenes. His name is linked to the great panoramas of the end of the 19th century. With Jan Styka and a team of artists, he created the Panorama of Racławice, an immense staging of the victory of 1794 which transformed the spectator into a witness surrounded by battle. He also collaborated on other panoramas, including that of the passage of the Berezina. Olszynka Grochowska looks back on the November insurrection of 1830 -1831. Instead of impeccable order, broken trees, smoke, tense gestures and muddy terrain give the confrontation has a physical and memorial density. The Uhlans Charge in Somosierra celebrates the assault of the Polish cavalry in Napoleon's service in Spain: diagonals, thrown horses and the depth of the pass build the collective momentum. Kossak also paints legions, soldiers of the First World War, Józef Piłsudski and the army of independent Poland. His speed of execution and popularity led to repetitions, variations and workshop collaborations, but his best works combined horse racing knowledge, clear storytelling and patriotic emotion. Until his death during the German occupation, he remained a central figure in Polish historical painting. There selection "Wojciech Kossak" notably compares Olszynka Grochowska and Charge des uhlans à Somosierra. His reading favors details.

Kossak knows the horse from the inside: breath, tension and imbalance give the story the speed of a charge experienced.