Architectural Treasures of the Golden & Silver Ages: Baroque

palac_w_wilanowie_en.jpg, default, The eastern facade of the Wilanów Palace, photo: Arkadiusz Ziółek/ East News

Never before or later in Polish architecture did the wealth of forms and details take on such a spectacular scale as in the Baroque era, when temples and palaces were designed with exceptional panache. Importantly, this was not just for effect. There were deeper purposes behind it.

The periods known as the Golden and Silver Ages encompass that moment in history when Polish kings ruled not only a territorially extensive but also an economically and culturally flourishing state in which representatives of various ethnic groups or faiths lived side by side. Although the power of the Commonwealth faded with time, architectural monuments remained. It is in them that the country’s level of development at the time can still be seen. The architectural buildings that have survived to this day, but also entire quarters of buildings and even towns, show that in terms of artistic level, application of the most up-to-date solutions and – to put it in contemporary terms – following trends, Polish architecture did not differ significantly from that created in Western Europe.

The Golden Age is generally considered the time of the Jagiellonian dynasty, which coincided with the heyday of the Renaissance style. Another epoch in art, the Baroque, took its fullest form when another dynasty of rulers, the House of Vasa, sat on the Polish throne. It lasted until the end of the 17th century, until the death of another Polish king, Jan III Sobieski. However, while the Polish Renaissance (and Mannerism, its declining form) were to a large extent linked to the development of cities, trade and culture, Baroque art and architecture – of the Silver Age – found an important space for its emergence in sacred buildings. This was related to religion, but also, in effect, cultural and social transformations brought about by the Counter-Reformation, a religious movement intended to restore the power and importance of the institution of the Church after the era of Renaissance humanism and the reformist speeches of Martin Luther (in 1517) or John Calvin (in 1536). It was for this reason that the Church became one of the most important donors of artists; in the newly built temples, they could realise their architectural, painting and sculptural visions.

Return to the Church

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Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Kraków, photo by iStockphoto/Getty Images

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The Counter-Reformation began with the decisions of the Council of Trent, which met between 1545 and 1563. It was there that bishops from all over the world recognised that in order to prevent an exodus of the faithful, not only was a reform of the liturgy needed, but also new aesthetic solutions – increasing the attractiveness of the churches themselves. The provisions of the Council of Trent were adopted in the Commonwealth in 1577, and from then on, churches began to be built according to the new rules. The first Baroque temple built on the territory of the Commonwealth in the Baroque style is the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh, founded for the Jesuits by Prince Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł (the Orphan) at the turn of the 16th century. Shortly afterwards, St Peter and St Paul's Church was built in Krakow – both these buildings are considered crucial to the development of Polish Baroque architecture. Both are modelled on the silhouette of the Roman Jesuit temple Il Gesù, which became a model for a new way of the building throughout Europe. Set on a rectangular plan, the church had an ornamental, high façade with a characteristic symmetrical arrangement of two storeys divided by pilasters, with an emphasised central axis, niches for statues of saints, prominent cornices, and a triangular gable.

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Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, central aisle, photo by Zygmunt Put Zetpe0202/Wikimedia.org

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Although the Nesvizh and Kraków churches were pioneering projects for the new era, the typical Baroque interior design in line with the recommendations of the Council of Trent can already be seen in them. This is because the temple was intended to 'draw in' the viewer, using architectural means to direct their gaze towards the altar and at the same time to intimidate and enthral them with its rich decoration carrying both the relevant symbolism and the message. The interior of the church was designed as a kind of scenography – a visual setting for the liturgical rites, in which cornices, columns, stucco, the dome and the complementary sculptures, architectural elements and painting were intended to evoke appropriate emotions and feelings in the worshippers. The same was soon thought of all architectural projects – the Baroque did not simply build 'buildings'; it built complex structures in which the gate, the fence and even the paths had a role to play. The viewer was to be surrounded by a well-thought-out set design that, through its coherent concept, was to produce the impression planned by the creator and developer.

Thumbnail — The interior of the Convent of Norbertine Sisters in Imbramowice, photo by Robert Niedźwiedzki/ Wikimedia.org

In Baroque churches, every element was important, from the shape of the entire building and the form of the façade to the layout of the interior and the minor decorations. The light was of great importance: the temple should be bright, so that the light could amplify the chiaroscuro effects on the numerous columns, pilasters and stuccos that split the walls. The intersection of the aisle and transept, topped by a dome symbolising heaven, was also an important part of the temple. The paintings should cover the entire vaulting of the church, with the dome as their culminating point – as in St Anne’s Church in Kraków, built from the late 1780s to the early years of the 18th century. The two-storey, two-tower façade is divided by stone semi-columns and decorated with sculptures and elaborate cornices. The interior, densely covered with painterly and stucco decoration and the highly decorative arcades between the aisles lead the viewer directly up to the illuminated dome, from where they gain a perfect view of the golden altar of a very expressive form. Although there are countless architectural and decorative elements in the building, none are incidental, and all coherently serve the overarching vision of creating a moving set that serves a better, more profound perception of the sacred.

To encompass the viewer

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Interior of the Church of St. Anthony of Padua in Czerniaków, Warsaw, photo by Adrian Grycuk/(CC BY-SA 3.0 PL)/Wikimedia.org

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Of course, not all Baroque churches were constructed according to this single model; there were deviations from it, and church architecture also underwent an evolution throughout the 17th century that led towards ever greater expressiveness. This can be seen if one compares the Kraków churches of St Peter and St Paul and St Anne, already mentioned here, which were built more than a century apart. The decorativeness in the former is still somehow subdued, subtle, and balanced. In the latter, there is no more room for rationalism – no part of the wall or vault is stripped of decoration. The first Baroque façades had two storeys; the Basilica of St Joseph at the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Poznań from the late 17th century already has three – its tall, elaborate structure is visible from a distance. The cornices, columns and sculpture niches in Nesvizh form a geometric composition, while on the façade of Warsaw’s Church of St Joseph of the Visitationists, built at the beginning of the 18th century, the architectural elements create an unusual chiaroscuro impression; they are no longer flatly positioned, but seem to press into the façade, protrude from it, shape its structure, rather than merely organise and decorate it.

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St Joseph Church and the Discalced Carmelites Monastery in Poznań, photo by Sebastian Czopik/Reporter/East News

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The desire to seduce, to enthral the viewer, but at the same time to direct their attention to the most important places and symbols inside the church also led to another model of the church, based on a central plan, being popularised in the Baroque era. Here, it was no longer necessary to direct the gaze of the worshippers towards the altar, as anyone entering such an edifice was immediately surrounded on all sides by relevant content and signs. This idea was realised almost perfectly in the church of St Joseph in Klimontów near Sandomierz. The façade, flanked by two tall, massive towers, leads the worshippers into the high, oval-domed interior. Although the interior is brightly lit, between the aisle and the dome the architects placed a deep gallery with balconies opening onto the aisle, thus creating another interesting chiaroscuro effect by means of architectural forms.

Tielman van Gameren, one of the most eminent architects who worked in Poland during the Silver Age, was also an admirer of central plans. Brought here from northern Europe, he used a slightly different style than the expressive Italian artists who dominated the 17th-century courts. Tielman created objects with slightly subdued but no less impressive forms. This is illustrated by two Warsaw shrines: St Casimir in the Nowe Miasto district and the Bernardine Church of St Anthony of Padua in Czerniaków. Both these relatively small buildings were founded on a central plan and covered with domes. Both were given restrained, even elegant forms on the outside, not quite heralding the much more decorative interiors.

Architecture for pilgrims

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Basilica of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Święta Lipka, photo by Wojciech Wojcik/Forum

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With the Counter-Reformation, new forms of religiosity began to develop. And they required their own setting. The most interesting and valuable realisation in the current of new ways of experiencing religious rites is Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. Calvaries, which are landscape and architectural structures recreating Jesus’ last journey to the place of crucifixion, were built in Europe as early as the 15th century but became particularly popular during the Baroque era.

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, built not far from Kraków, is a church with its accompanying monastery, but above all, a pilgrimage route leading along the slopes of a nearby hill, supplemented by 42 chapels and churches which help to recreate the stations of the Passion of Christ. Varying in appearance and scale, the buildings erected for the Calvary present a large set of stylistic and spatial solutions; some of the chapels are simple and austere, and others were given elaborate form and decoration. The effect was also important for the subsequent sacred buildings erected during the Counter-Reformation to develop people’s religiosity. These are pilgrimage churches and sanctuaries that, shrouded in the legend of miracles, healings and saint-related legends, were to attract believers also from outside the region, like the Jesuit Marian monastery in Święta Lipka. There, the extensive sacred complex was designed to be captivating in scale and visible from afar as a significant landmark in space. One reason for this is the very tall, highly decorative façade of the church, flanked by two towers.

The Holy Trinity Church in Tarłów had yet another task to fulfil. This church, which dates from the mid-17th century, is filled with sculptural and pictorial decoration intended to make the faithful aware of death, in the face of which all are equal and after which, if merited, true happiness awaits only in heaven. 'The Dance of Death' – for this is the name of the iconographic motif used in a very elaborate form in Tarłów – was popular during the Counter-Reformation because it clearly instructed the faithful on the system of values they should follow.

Royal residences

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Julian Cegliński, Royal Castle in Warsaw, 1859, photo National Museum in Warsaw

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Although 17th-century art was dominated by sacred themes, secular buildings were also created during the Silver Age. The most prominent ones had to do with the relocation of the capital of the Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw. Carried out by King Sigismund III Vasa in 1596, this crucial change brought about new needs, including the most important one: adapting the castle located in the new capital to the needs of the royal residence. Today, it is difficult to see traces of the Baroque reconstruction of the Royal Castle because it was rebuilt not only many times in successive eras, but also once again after World War II, in a novel form that was a collection of forms from different eras.

The fact is, however, that it was at the turn of the 17th century that this important Warsaw building radically changed its face from a medieval fortress to an ornate royal residence. At the beginning of the 17th century, a large castle designed for Sigismund III Vasa also stood on top of the Vistula bank (it was built as a result of a major extension and reconstruction of an existing building). The Ujazdowski Castle was the king’s suburban summer residence, from where, among others, he went hunting in the area at the foot of the slope. Set on a quadrangle plan, the single-storey edifice had an inner courtyard with cloisters and hexagonal towers at the corners. Although later extended and rebuilt after the destruction of World War II, it has retained some of its Baroque forms to this day.

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Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, photo by Tomasz Jastrzębowski/Reporter/East News

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As in sacral architecture, the evolution of architectural forms can be observed in residential architecture throughout the 17th century, from ornate but fairly simple to increasingly decorative, even elaborate. This is well illustrated by comparing the Ujazdowski Castle and King Jan III Sobieski’s residence in Wilanów. Built a few decades apart, the two suburban royal residences represent completely different concepts for this type of building. The first is quite monumental but restrained in form, while the other is characterised by the splendour and decorativeness manifested not only in the sculptures, details and paintings that complement the building, but also in the arrangement of the space surrounding the palace, with terraces, gardens and a park that vary in style and character. Magnate mansions extended or built during the Silver Age also present solutions that serve an ornamental rather than a functional purpose.

A spectacular example is a castle in Wiśnicz, which between 1615 and 1621, at the behest of the Lubomirski family, was transformed from a medieval fortress into a luxurious residence. Interestingly, it has retained some defensive elements, such as towers and fortified towers, but these have become decorative, ceasing to serve their original function. Also, the Palace of the Kraków Bishops in Kielce, built in the 1730s, presents a high architectural quality. This city palace, inscribed in the space of Cathedral Hill, has a compact body, with the main structure flanked by four slender towers and annexes connected to it by arcaded galleries. Although in the urban fabric, there was no room for a large residence, this palace has not only a decorative form but also a picturesque garden at the back.

Town & country residences

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Palace of the Kraków Bishops in Kielce, photo by Jakub Hałun/ Wikimedia.org

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Several magnate residences were built in Warsaw, which was newly transformed into a capital city. Again, particularly interesting edifices here came from the hand of Tielman van Gameren, famous for his admiration of simplicity. At the end of the 17th century, the Krasiński family palace was built in the centre of what was then Warsaw by order of the Płock Voivode Jan Dobrogost Krasiński. The free-standing, massive building was given not so much decorative as monumental forms: the façades are decorated with triangular tympanums filled with relief scenes, but the character of the structure is created above all by its very orderly, symmetrical, axial arrangement.

The same was true of another city palace, designed for the Crown Chancellor Jan Krzysztof Gniński by the same architect (the residence has changed owners many times and today houses the Fryderyk Chopin Museum). Situated on the escarpment slope on Tamka Street in Warsaw, the palace has rhythmically ordered façades with the central axis accentuated by a more decorative risalit topped by a tympanum with sculptures. The Baroque offered magnates and princes a wealth of forms from which to draw when creating their estates – it depended on the ambition of the builder and the imagination of the architect whether the building represented a more restrained or decorative style.

The Baroque era did not end with the 17th century; on the contrary, the following century saw the creation of many buildings in which the love of striking, decorative, intimidating forms developed even further. However, they no longer belong to the era known as the 'Silver Age'; they are works of new times, of a different political, social and economic situation. That is just further evidence of how this style, born out of the need for Church reform, was widely adopted in all fields of art.

Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Mistur

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baroque architecture

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The Golden & Silver Ages