Portrety fizjonomiczno-impresjonistyczne u Orzeszkowej

Abstract

As hypothesised in this paper, Eliza Orzeszkowa was Poland’s unquestionable precursor of physiognomic experiments with her portraying skills being particularly intensively developed in her early works. For her, the face played the most important, uncovering the “intimate man”, betraying hidden passions, decrypting unspoken thoughts. When observing people, the author used the bodily signs (shape of the head, line of the mouth, size of the eye, appearance of the forehead, nose, wrinkles) to try to uncover the inner man, his nature, defects and advantages. The analysis goes back to two of Orzeszkowa’s earliest novels, Rozstajne drogi [Crossroads] (1866) and W klatce [In the Cage] (1867) to proceed to such works as Pan Graba [Mr. Graba] (1872) and Na dnie sumienia [On the Bottom of the Conscience] (1872), which all fall within Orzeszkowa’s first artistic period. A comparison of the there portraits, both female and male, allows tracing how the young writer’s competence in physiognomy and pathognomy developed.