Michał Kulesza
| Michał Kulesza | |
|---|---|
The picture of the Belarusian artist Mikhail Kulesha, depicting military leader
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| Born |
Michał Aleksander Piotr Kulesza 26 November 1799 Vilnius, now Lithuania |
| Died | 6 November 1863 (aged 63) Białystok, now Poland |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Education | PhD (Imperial University of Vilnius) |
| Known for | Oil painting, lithography |
| Notable work | "Hussars Poised to Strike," "Barbara Radziwiłł," "Sts. Boris and Gleb's Church in Kalozha, Hrodna" |
| Movement | Romanticism |
| Patron(s) | Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński |
The Romantic painter Michał Kulesza (26 November 1799 – 6 November 1863) was among the first lithographers in the area of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, ruled by Russia for almost all of his life. His frequent theme, sites linked to the Grand Duchy's history, reflected the growing Lithuanian and Polish ethnic activism in the area. He lived and worked in today's southern Lithuania, south-eastern Belarus, and north-eastern Poland, and traveled around in search of new subjects for his oil paintings and lithographs. A leading landscape painter of his period, Kulesza created images that are now among the sparse visual records of the region in the first half of the 19th century.
Michał Kulesza was born in Vilnius, then the capital of Russia's Vilna Governorate. Two encyclopedic sources give the year of his birth as 1799, a few authors list 1800 without the month or day. He lived and worked in a multi-ethnic area, although he called himself a "Polish painter" when he published his work in France, he referred to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and from his last name Kulesza, it can not be judged on his ethnicity, as it may be both Polish, as well as old Lithuanian spelling. It is not known how many languages, and how often, he spoke. He attended the notableCistercian grade school in Troškūnai, his artistic training started in preparatory middle-and-high school (gymnasium) back in his birth place when he took classes with the neoclassicist painter Jonas Damelis. He then continued at the Imperial University of Vilnius, where Jan Rustem began to teach lithography in 1819, from which he received a PhD in art in 1829.
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Wikipedia