"Kościoły, synagogi i cerkwie"
24 lipca 2000 | Kultura |
autor: Janusz Drzewucki

The album "Polska" containing 250 photograms is the seventh work of this type in the achievements of Paweł Jaroszewski, one of the most interesting photographers of the middle generation. Previously, he published albums including: about Kraków, Tarnów, Sandomierz, Żelazowa Wola and Wieliczka. The fact that the authors of the texts included in it are: Krzysztof Burek, Paweł Huelle, Jerzy Waldorff, prof. Jacek Woźniakowski and Fr. prof. Józef Tischner. It is worth adding that Fr. Tischner wrote an impression about Podhale at Jaroszewski's request ten years ago for a planned album about the mountains, which, however, was never edited. In the text published now for the first time, the philosopher who died a few weeks ago wrote: "The culture of Podhale was born in the ancient past, when poverty in the Podhale region took the form of famine. Despite such poverty, this land was able to give birth to a wealth that distinguishes it from afar: it gave birth to its own, admirable culture." Of course, the greatest threat to tradition is, unfortunately, modernity, which unifies everything that is in folk culture, or rather - peasantry lively and creative. "The worst lies deepest" - adds Fr. Tischner: "Here the old man is slowly disappearing - a man who loved freedom and turned it into a creative force, who from the depths of his freedom created beauty and the truth about the mystery of life." It is probably not a coincidence that the photographs of the Tatra Mountains, but also of the Pieniny Mountains, the Bieszczady Mountains and the Table Mountains are among the best in the book. There is no doubt that nature is the favorite subject of the Krakow photographer. The landscape of the San valley, the landscape of Masovian fields and meadows on the Biebrza River, the view of the Vistula near Płock, the panorama of Wisłoujście, the dunes of the Łebska Spit and, finally, the waves of the Baltic Sea at dusk - all this, often photographed from a bird's eye view, is breathtaking. Jaroszewski's journey around his homeland starts from Ostrów Lednicki, Gniezno, Poznań and Kruszwica, and ends in the Suwałki region, near Sejny, at the Camaldolese monastery on Lake Wigry. He also took great care in photographing the architecture of both large cities such as Warsaw, Wrocław and Kraków, as well as towns: Kazimierz Dolny, Łańcut, Leżajsk, Krasiczyn. The artist tried to avoid stereotypes. Therefore, in his album we will not find the legendary Kruszwica Mysia Tower, but a view from the Mysia Tower of the Rzępowski Peninsula and Lake Gopło. Instead of a postcard-style town hall in Zamość, Jaroszewski offers us stills of the Zamość cathedral and synagogue. The Poland presented in the album is a country of various religions. Tasteful photographs from Jasna Góra are juxtaposed with almost reportage-style frames showing Hasidim gathered at the grave of Izrael ben Eliezer, as well as Orthodox Christians praying in churches in Kodeń, Grabarka and Jabłeczna. However, if I missed something in this - which is worth emphasizing - extremely carefully edited album, it was photos from Upper Silesia.

Janusz Drzewucki

Janusz Drzewucki: Paweł Jaroszewski "Polska. Poprzez wieki ku nowemu tysiącleciu". Wydawnictwo Andrzej Frukacz "Ex libris" - Galeria Polskiej Książki, Warszawa 2000.

A Pole, Paweł Jaroszewski, gave the Stari Grad Town his heart and album!
Mirko Crnčević
SLOBODNA DALMACIJA

In the garden of the Biankini Palace, many admirers of the cultural life of Stary Grad - Faros - were officially presented with the album of the famous Polish photographer, Paweł Jaroszewski, entitled "Stari Grad Dusk to Daybreak. Paweł Jaroszewski has been an artist dealing with photography for over 25 years, and at the same time has extensive experience in publishing and internet projects. It is interesting that in his publications he combines photographs of landscapes, architecture and reportage with historical narration and personal reflections.

“I have been working on this publishing project since 2018, when an exhibition of my black and white photographs under the same title was held at the Stratiko gallery of the Dominican monastery in Stari Grad. Over the next few months, I continued my photographic recording of the city, and at my request, the late Academician Tonko Maroević, just two months before his death, wrote the introduction to this album. That is why I dedicated the book to this magician of Croatian culture, an incomparable Croatian art and literature critic, but also to all my friends from the oldest city in the lands of the Republic of Croatia - a place where I have been coming for over two decades, where I really experienced only good things and left my heart there ”- said Jaroszewski very emotionally.

During the promotion, Aldo Čavić, director of the Stary Grad Museum, talked about the book and the author, and in the Biankini garden, the aforementioned exhibition was shown. It must also be said that Pawel is clearly fascinated by the culture, architecture and landscapes of Dalmatia, especially the ancient Faros and the island of Hvar. How much he is in love with the aforementioned climate is best evidenced by the fact that in the famous Greek field of "Faroska hora" there is his small piece of land with literally three olive trees, so his Croatian friends joke that he is in fact "the largest olive grower - in Poland ". Previously, he published his own photo albums "Stari Grad in miniature", "Churches and chapels of Stariy Grad" and "Discovering Hvar", and several prominent Croatian authors gave these publications their "seal".

Among them, for example, apart from Čavić and Maroević, there are also: Nikola Bižaca, Josip Franulić, Ivica Huljev, Tomislav Raukar, Vinko Ružević, Vinko Tarbušković, Ambroz Tudor. The album was summed up in its text by the late Tonko Maroević: "... Stari Grad can be photogenic and is a suitable motive for filming, painting, dreaming, and there are many visual, painted and even film presentations and interpretations, but there are few that, like in Paweł Jaroszewski's work, managed to convey its whole and show it to the explorer's amazement. And we also have reasons to be amazed at the result, to see our city as a miracle, and to be grateful to it for the experience.

Mirko Crnčević
SLOBODNA DALMACIJA