Listy z Włoch o sztuce kościelnej ks. Antoniego Brykczyńskiego, czyli o śladach artystyczno-duchowej psychomachii

Abstrakt

Fr. Antoni Brykczynski (1843-1913), by his contemporary, was said to be a “social activist in a worn cassock”. As a priest, he was genuinely dedicated to improving the moral and economical culture of Polish people. He was also taking much effort to make Christian iconography, history of ecclesial art and architecture widely known. Having gained a profound education, he became a well-known and eagerly published author of religious and social essays, in both Polish and foreign press. The following article is about a series of letters written by Brykczynski during his trip to Italy in 1897. All the letters were published as a book in 1899 in a popular series by “Biblioteka Dzieł Wyborowych”. The formal analysis of the letters, especially construing the roles that the narrator is trying to synchronise, has led us to the conclusion that the uniqueness of the Brykczynski trip to Italy lies in the ultimate subordination of its academic and aesthetic aims to the pastoral ones. The way Brykczynski understood his duties as a pastor were formed by the social postulates that were shared by the entire generation of positivists, primarily by postulate of the “organic work” and “work from the very foundations”.