Bitayeva O. Historical Painting: Polish Culture Phenomenon. Experience of the Second Half of the 19th Century

The Dissertation is dedicated to analysis of historical painting as an important part of Polish pictorial arts of the second half of the 19th century. It illustrates that a wide range of issues which in this way or another have something to do with the concept of artistic interpretation of historical events, nowadays still remain an object of theoretical attention. Since historical painting is always a portrayal of actual events and is organically interconnected with social, national, moral and ethical quaesitae of particular historical periods, it is a cultural and artistic phenomenon. It has been forcefully set forth, that in Polish pictorial art of the second half of the 19th century became a period of intense development of historical painting in particular, having shown various conceptual approaches to artistic interpretation of actual historical events. Therefore the following points become issues of a discussion of current interest nowadays: a) historical event as a fact; b) historical event as a fantasy and imagination; c) historical event as a myth; d) historical event as a theatrical performance. These four points have been illustrated in a certain way by historical topics interpretation models presented in works by most prominent representatives of Polish historical century such as Y. Brandt,Y. Zimmler, Y. Mateyko. While paying major attention to the problem of historical painting, the dissertation also presents a viewpoint that historical genre was considered to be the main genre out of many in Polish art of the second half of the 19th century. In this connection it was historical painting that played a major role in the process of formation of cultural dialogue between Poland and other European countries such as Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, France, the Czech Republic.