Saturday, December 10, 2022

Polish peasant horse in Aleksander Kotsis paintings

 Salvete Omnes,

 


finally a little entry about Aleksander Kotsis (1836-77), citizen of then town of Podgorze (complicated story of Krakow and towns and villages in the vicinity during 1795-1914- nowadays a district of Krakow) who was of mixed Polish and Slovak heritage, his father Jan perhaps of the Slovak ancestry from Lewocza/Levoca in Spis while his mother came from  village of  Ludwinow  , now part of Krakow, and was of a peasant origin.
Kotsis was one the XIX century growing community of Polish masters of brush and paint, pen and ink, and charcoal. This artist grew up, lived and worked mostly in Little Poland, while doing academic and artistic studies at  Krakow Academy of Fine Arts  and at  Vienna's k.k. vereinigten Akademie der bildenden Künste (Imperial and Royal Unified Academy of Fine Arts). 

Luszczykiewicz' gorals or highlanders

 

While in Krakow  he  studied under two influential  professors   Władysław Łuszczkiewicz & Wojciech Stattler

 

friends of Artur Grottger, including Kotsis and Matejko Ad 1865, Krakow

  Among his fellow students there were many great artists-in-training, like  Jan Matejko and Artur Grottger to name a few.


 

 He was forced to stop working in 1875 and  died prematurely in 1877.



 

Kotsis painted lots of country and farm characters, including the gorals aka Highlanders and other Carpathians Mountains  mountaineers.
Became a painter of Polish peasants and their lives in the second half of the XIX century.  And the peasant farmer and highlander used faithful koniks and Hucul horses in their work, draft and in other transposition needs and pleasures, including riding.


in the picture below there is a Gypsy family with a captive bear.


here we have a typical sturdy konik, the workhorse of the Polish peasantry of those past centuries

noble horses in this canvass - horse market

Kotsis traveled across Europe, including the Alps,hence this alpine looking canvas

Cracovian farmer and a Jewish trader


Valete

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