Plenty of modern Polish artists were educated at foreign academies, especially in Rome, and therefore they were able to stay up-to-date on all the newest trends. Some of them left their works behind – for instance, the papal architect Jan Benedykt Renard who, at the beginning of the 18th century, received three awards in competitions organised by Rome’s Academia, and who in 1712 rebuilt the facade of the Rome hospice and the Polish church San Stanislao in the late Roman Baroque style. Inside the church, we can find, for instance, artwork by Szymon Czechowicz (1689-1775), who was also educated in Rome and created paintings for a few local churches. His best piece in San Stanislao church seems to be the portrait of St. Jadwiga (1725), referring to the tradition of Roman Baroque, exemplified by Guido Reni, but enriched by a heavy dose of exalted emotion. In his works from the San Bonaventura church in Palatino, Czechowicz appears also as a continuator of the classicising style of 17th-century paintings.
One of the most eminent Polish Baroque painters, Tadeusz Kuntze-Konicz (1733-1793), a student of a few Roman academies, eventually settled in Rome in 1766, where he passed away. Italians called him Taddeo Polacco. His graceful paintings and frescoes are to be found in palaces and churches all around Rome (for instance San Stanislao and Il Gesu), but also in numerous towns in Latium which boast well-known and frequently visited churches (such as those in Bracciano, Caprarola, Tuscolo, Viterbo). What’s particularly interesting is the abundance of Konicz’s artwork in the famous villa town nearby Rome – Frascato. There he painted frescoes (for the Il Gesu church), decorated the bishop’s palace and Villa Borghese, finally he created effigies of the bishop Henryk Stuart. The painter also stayed in Spain for a certain period of time, and he’s said to have been in contact with Goya. However, this and other Spanish traces in the biography of this great painter remain shrouded in mystery.
Poland under partition & the exodus of artists
Due to Poland’s loss of independence at the end of the 18th century, the number of Poles abroad started to grow significantly. That included artists educated, sometimes permanently settled, and working on all continents, where more often than not they created first-class masterpieces. The places which attracted artists the most were, of course, those which were home to the largest groups of Polish political emigrants: Paris and Rome. In Rome, one could find an interesting piece by Konstanty Hegel, one of the Polish apprentices of Bartel Thorvaldsen. The work is typical for that type of neoclassical style in which the great Danish sculptor made monuments and gravestones for Poles. Santi Sergio e Bacco church is home to a raw epitaph sculpted by Hegel, commemorating, through an antique stelle, the Polish emigrant Juliusz Miszewski (1827).
From the beginning of the 19th century, more and more Polish sculptors were active in Rome, engaging in consistent artistic practice. The scholar Tomasz O. Sosnowski (1810-1886) spent almost all of his artistic life in Italy, leaving behind numerous artworks – mostly in Rome. The best-known is the Pieta, located by Scala Santa in Lateran (around 1870-1873), which possesses a distinct poignancy despite the cold classical style it employs. It’s accompanied by the nearby realistic sculpture of Pope Pious IX praying. Both pieces were commissioned by the Pope, who supported the Polish sculptor. On top of that, other works Sosnowski left in Rome include religious sculptures, torsos and a relief depicting the Angel of Resurrection, which adorns the artist’s own gravestone in the city’s largest cemetery, Campo Verano. This was also where another Polish emigrant, quickly deemed one of the most eminent representatives of international academic art, Wiktor Brodzki (1826-1904) created a gravestone for a then well-known Roman lady, Enedina Giordano Sanna Apostoli (1875-1878). It was a sensation of its time: it appeared on the pages of Italian newspapers, it was even a topic for panegyrical poems; according to one of these poets, Brodzki had overcome the destructive power of nature!