Nieoczywisty inspirator. Myśl estetyczna Józefa Kremera okiem polskich pozytywistów

Abstract

The present author has traced theoretical and stylistic relationships between Kremer and positivists, and demonstrated that they were stronger than one could expect, thus showing that the aesthetic theories of the Cracow philosopher span various currents and periods of the nineteenth century. First, on the basis of works by Henryk Struve and Stanisław Brzozowski, he has shown, how early on the thought of Kremer was juxtaposed with that of the classics of Positivism, Auguste Comte and Hippolyte Taine. Next, he has emphasised the important role of Aleksander Tyszyński, professor of Main School, whose critical judgement of the ‘art for art’s sake’ motto from the review of Kremer’s Letters from Cracow was eagerly seized by positivists and repeated in their first programmatic texts. An analysis has revealed that the rejection of Kremer’s aesthetics in the manifestos of the ‘young’ dramatically changed in the articles of Piotr Chmielowski of 1875 and the recollections of Eliza Orzeszkowa written in the 1890s: there the philosopher was given credit for popularizing the theory and history of art as well as his masterful writing, but at the same time he was denied originality and an attempt was made to show that his views were out of date, in spite of the fact that one could see many similarities between the theories of the thinkers under discussion