dimensions: 78.7 x 108.1cm
- oil, canvas
Other titles: Rest of the patrician, Rest, Rest of the patrician, Siesta of the patrician.
Signed l.d.: HSiemiradzki | _ Roma 1881._.
Painting exhibited, mentioned and reproduced, among others, in:
- "Gazeta Polska" 1881, no. 193 (June 25), p. 3;
- Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw, June 1881;
- "Czas" 1881, no. 144 (June 26), p. 2;
- "Tygodnik Powszechny" 1881, no. 27 (July 3), p. 430 (Leisure of a patrician);
- B. Zawadzki, Art review, "Ivy" 1881, no. 34 (August 12), p. 268 (Leisure);
- W. Marrene, Review of fine arts, "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" 1881, no. 302 (October 8), p. 230 (Leisure of a patrician);
- Report of the Committee of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in the Kingdom of Poland for 1881, Warsaw 1882, p. 48 (Rest of a patrician, 41 x 32 - dimensions in inches);
- H. Zawilska, Henryk Siemiradzki 1843-1902: paintings and drawings from Polish collections, Museum of Art in Lodz, December 1968 - I 1969, cat. no. 19 (Patrician's siesta);
- J. Miziołek, I duecapolavori de Eico Siemiradzki Le torce di Nerone e Il giudizio di Paride ovvero Il trionfo di Venere, Pegasus 2010, pp. 83-119;
- J. Miziolek, Muse, Baccanti e Centauri. I capolavori della pittura pompeiana e la loro fortuna in Polonia, Varsavia 2010, pp. 70-72, 162;
- J. Miziołek, Nel segno di Quo vadis? Roma ai tempi di Nerone e dei primi martiri nelle opera di Sienkiewicz, Siemiradzki, Styka e Smuglewicz, ed. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Roma 2017, pp. 91-93, 143;
- Korpus of Henryk Siemiradzki's paintings, vol. 2A, ed. by J. Malinowski, Warsaw-Toruń 2021, p. 61, fig. 12/7-1;
- D. Gorzelany-Nowak, Greco-Roman antiquity in Siemiradzki's work, [in:] Korpus of Henryk Siemiradzki's paintings, vol. 3, ed. by J. Malinowski, Warsaw-Toruń 2021, pp. 29-41.
As Dorota Gorzelany-Nowak writes in her study Greco-Roman Antiquity in Siemiradzki's work, the painter's interest in ancient themes was connected with his classical education and the profile of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where he studied.
Not only the academy itself, but also the Hermitage, among others, provided students with numerous opportunities for contact with the art of antiquity. Originals and copies of ancient sculptures, as well as collections of everyday objects, allowed the young painter to thoroughly study the culture of antiquity. In time, Siemiradzki built up his own collection, which included originals and copies of vessels and vases, both Greek and Etruscan, Persian carpets, numerous gypsums and even skins of wild animals. He also had a small armory with Roman and Greek weapons in his studio. The bookcase contained numerous publications on ancient art and culture.
In the 1880s, the artist tried to move away from academism. He wanted to focus on beauty, sensuality and goodness. He did not refer to mythology and did not literally recreate ancient buildings. His sun-filled scenes showed Siemiradzki's idea of antiquity and were meant to be a respite for the viewer from the grim, ubiquitous historical scenes. The artist used numerous relics of ancient sculpture, crafts and architecture, both existing ones and reconstructions included in popular science publications he had in his library. All of these elements were used by Siemiradzki to map the golden age of the ancient world.
Rest of a Patrician is an excellent example of this. Siemiradzki builds an antique setting - a villa on a steep shore overlooking an azure sea - modeling it on both colorful, richly decorated Pompeian homes and refined Roman villas. To deepen the authenticity of the scene, the artist placed a sculpture of Diana on the balustrade. According to Jakub Zarzycki in The Corpus of Henryk Siemiradzki's Paintings (after Jerzy Miziołek), this is Artemis Braschi, a Roman copy of the Greek original (see below; Artemis Braschi takes its name from Palazzo Braschi, now in the collection of the Munich Gliptothek). In addition to it, the artist also used a relief from Puteale Giustiniani, a 17th-century copy of a lost ancient sculpture. In The Rest of the Patrician, however, it is not a basin, but, set on a large marble pedestal, is probably the base of another statue.
Below, on a shaded terrace, a patrician in a white toga sits on a carved bench whose backrest is shaped like a dog chasing a rabbit. A laughing man - presumably a guest - leans toward him. The host's expression, however, betrays displeasure at his amusement. Both look at the beautiful, impassive slave girl, pouring wine into a decorative bowl held by the mighty man. In front of them, Siemiradzki added another element of antique scenery - a Pompeian bronze three-legged table. On the other hand, at the edge of the bench he placed a Greek cantaros with a satyr's head on its belly. His face is confusingly reminiscent of an exaggerated, even caricatured likeness of a young Roman.
The young man's amusement may stem from the words he read from the scroll. Set aside, protruding from between the folds of his coat and hanging slightly from the bench, it makes itself readable. The red title label bears the Greek inscription Anakreon. We have before us a poem by a Greek poet who celebrated in his works the charms of life, including feasts and love, which, however, had the characteristics of a social game rather than deep affection. The poem quoted by Siemiradzki is Everything drinks Anacreon (translated by Kazimierz Kaszewski):
The black earth drinks sinks,
From the earth's sap the trees drink,
The sea with river water lives,
From the depths of the sea the sun drinks,
The moon drinks the light of the sun.
And you, druhy, defend me
Drink - for even a lifetime?
The entire composition closes with the figure of a Nubian, standing under the statue of Diana, holding more scrolls to choose from. Considering the content of the unrolled parchment, we can guess that these are not important official writings, but reading intended to give pleasure during rest. His facial expression and clenched fist allow us to interpret the scene depicted. Valerie Marrené, in a review of fine arts published in the Illustrated Weekly of 1881, wrote: The artist next to this world of use and licentious superfluity placed its antithesis - the slave girl, and from the eternal contrast between the plight of the people he drew the theme of his work. A dark slave, with woolly hair, waits for his master's nod; but his face, staring at him, is menacing, and his strong fist clenches convulsively. It is unknown whether he is concerned with the beautiful slave girl, or whether this movement is an expression of simple envy, which is aroused by the one who uses in his heart what he suffers it is certain, however, that it would be dangerous for the patrician to find himself in the power of a slave, and that this world of the oppressed, trodden down, was a constant threat in the shape of the sword of Damocles, suspended over the ancient world.
In Rest of a Patrician, against the backdrop of an idyllic landscape and a beautiful villa, Siemiradzki highlights the progressive degeneration that, in his view, led to the collapse of the ancient world.
Henryk Siemiradzki (Pecheny (Belgorod), near Kharkiv 1843 - Strzalkowo near Czestochowa 1902) - prominent academic painter; initially a pupil of painter Dmitry Bezperch in Kharkiv, a graduate of the natural science department of Kharkiv University - from 1864 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He received five silver and two gold medals for his student works.
In 1871, as a scholarship recipient of the Academy, he went to Munich, where he stayed for a year, studying independently and maintaining contacts with the colony of Polish artists there. From 1872 he lived permanently in Rome; initially he had a studio in via Margutta, and from 1884 in his own palazzo in via Gaetta. Honored with membership in the European Academies - St. Luke's Academy in Rome (1880), the Academy in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris, Turin, repeatedly awarded medals at exhibitions, decorated with state orders (including the French Legion of Honor and the Italian order Corona d'Italia), he enjoyed great recognition and fame. He maintained constant and lively contacts with the country - he sent paintings to exhibitions, and in 1879 donated his famous painting Candlesticks of Christianity to the city of Krakow, giving rise to the collection of the National Museum. He painted curtains for theaters in Krakow (1896) and Lviv (1900; the artist's gift to the city). He sought subjects for his paintings primarily in antiquity; in the history, life and myths of ancient Greece or Rome. But he also created religious scenes (Ascension), genre paintings and portraits. With masterful technique, he painted both monumental, theatrically staged and crowded canvases, and intimate compositions, set either in ancient scenery or in contemporary realities (With the Viaticle, With Comfort and Help). He painted decorative plafonds (Spring, Dawn, Light and Darkness), and was the author of a set of paintings in the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow 1875-1879). He was fond of painting the landscape, treated either as a backdrop for the scenes set in it, and sometimes as an independent landscape plunged into the falling dusk or bathed in sunlight. With particular mastery he recreated the effects caused by light penetrating through the branches of trees, which, as H. Sienkiewicz wrote, cast a strong shadow, among which vibrate golden spots, formed by the sun's rays pressing between the leaves /.../ No one paints this movement of the sun's rays as well as Siemiradzki.
