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Genius (Bust of a Boy)

Tadeusz Baracz

Basic information

ID: С-I-230
Author: Tadeusz Baracz
Name: Genius (Bust of a Boy)
Date of creation: 1884
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Culture: Modern times
Technique: modeling
Material: terracotta
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 46.5 x 42 x 23

Additionally

Type: sculpture 3D
Plot: Allegory
Provenance: Courtesy of Stanislaw Baracz and his wife National Gallery of Lviv (until 1940)

Information about author

Author: Tadeusz Baracz
Artist's lifetime: 1849–1905
Country: Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: Tadeusz Baracz (24 March 1849, Lviv – 12 March 1905, Lviv) was a Polish sculptor of Armenian origin, one of the most famous sculptors in Lviv in the second half of the 19th century. He was the son of Jakub Baracz, the owner of the Krakow Hotel, and Teresa of the Truchlinski family. He studied at a cadet school in the Austrian town of Hainburg as his father planned a career in the army for his son. He later graduated from a real school in Lviv. He began his artistic training in 1868–1869 at the Krakow School of Fine Arts under Wladyslaw Luszkiewicz and Henryk Kosowski. He studied at the Munich Academy of Arts in the studio of Max Windmann (1869–1871). He continued his training in Florence in the studio of Augusto Rivalto (1872–1875). At the beginning of 1876, he returned to Lviv. The sculptor's studio in the "Krakow" Hotel on Bernardynska Square (now Soborna Square) became a meeting place for photography enthusiasts. On 27 March 1891, a meeting of photography enthusiasts was held, which marked the beginning of the institutionalisation of their activities. Baracz's early works (until 1875) were in the late Romantic style, while his later works were realistic, neo-Renaissance and neo-Baroque. The artist's works show a synthesis of the traditions of the Munich and Viennese schools of sculpture, the latter having been integrated into Lviv thanks to a trip to Vienna in the second half of the 1870s and collaboration with the sculpture company of Julian Markowski, one of the brightest representatives of the Viennese school of sculpture. He began to exhibit his works in Lviv while studying at the Munich Academy of Art. He participated in the annual exhibitions of the Society of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo przyjaciół sztuk pięknych we Lwowie – TPSP) (1874–1904). In 1891, he was awarded a prize at the International Exhibition in Berlin for his work "The Head of an Old Man". In 1893, he exhibited his works in Chicago (USA). In January 1895, he joined the "Committee of Experts" of the TPSP with S. Batowski, S. Dembicki, T. Popiel and J. Styka. In 1897–1900, he participated in the sculptural decoration of the Great City Theatre in Lviv (now Solomiia Krushelnytska Lviv State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet), several Lviv buildings, created many monumental monuments, portraits and tombstones, mostly in the Lychakiv cemetery. He also tried his hand at animal painting: in 1929, he exhibited his "Dog's Head" at one of the Lviv exhibitions. Famous are the heraldic lions created by T. Baracz: at the entrance to the Town Hall and on the grave of Konstanty Ordon in the Lychakiv cemetery. The sculptor died in Lviv at the age of 56 after a long illness and was buried in the Lychakiv cemetery (Field 59). In 1905, a posthumous exhibition of Baracz's works was held, presenting 120 reliefs, sculptural groups, and busts. After Baracz's death, his brother Roman donated the sculptor's works to the City Gallery and Ossolineum Library. In 1940, during the nationalisation of private art collections, the Ossolinski collection was transferred to the Lviv Art Gallery (now Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery). The works by Tadeusz Baracz are kept in the National Museum in Krakow and the Tarnow Museum in Poland.

Object description

Tadeusz Baracz became famous as the author of numerous monuments, including those to Adam Mickiewicz in Drohobych (1894), Truskavets (1898), and Boryslav (1898), and a project for a monument to the poet in Krakow (1884–1885). The competition for the latter (1880–1890) was won by Teodor Rygier's work, which was later cast in Rome by the Italian firm Nelli and erected in 1898 on the square at the intersection of Sienna Street and Sukiennice. The monument was destroyed by the German occupying forces on 17 August 1940 and restored in 1955. T. Baracz's unrealised project was characterised by excessive narrative and an excess of figures, including the genius, whose terracotta model is in the collection of Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, and the bronze model in the National Museum in Krakow. The sculptor's work on the monument comes at a time when the cult of Mickiewicz as a "national genius" of the Polish people, a "national prophet", was established in the late nineteenth century and several competitions for projects to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth were announced. The prototype of the sculpture was the numerous representations of geniuses as allegories of inspiration in the monuments to creative people in the European artistic tradition. Perhaps the most famous example of the implementation of the figurative and plastic concept in Lviv sculpture is the monument to A. Mickiewicz by A. Popiel (1902–1903) on the Mariinska Square in Lviv with the figure of the poet reaching for a lyre handed to him by a winged genius flying from the sky. The stylistic feature of the bust from the Gallery's collection is the reminiscence of Romanticism, visible in the inspired gaze and half-open young lips. The idealisation, the graceful line of the silhouette, the sensuality and the soft modelling all point to the inspiration of Neo-Florentine art, based on the creative reinterpretation of works by Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, and Benvenuto Cellini.

Inscriptions

Signed and dated on the right-hand chamfer: "T. Barącz / 884"; on the back: "H VI / 17".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Genius (Bust of a Boy)

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