‘Four Strings of a Violin’ – a painting by Edward Okuń

The painter and printmaker Edward Okuń is one of the most fascinating individualists working at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Paradoxically, he is somewhat forgotten today precisely because of his original style, which remained unchanged despite the changing world around him. He combined symbolic motifs, characteristic of Young Poland art, and the supple Art Nouveau line with inspirations drawn from Italian Renaissance art. The artist combined modern techniques with graphic decorum; contemporary compositions with enigmatic themes straddling the boundaries of fairy tales, literature and dreams. In his work, he realised the modernist idea of the synthesis of the arts, combining visual, literary and musical elements.

Four Strings of the Violin

The title of the painting is ambiguous. It is used interchangeably with ‘Vivitur Ingenio Caetera Mortis Erunt’, taken from the Latin maxim inscribed on the painting’s frame. The artist was known for leaving nothing to chance in his works. He also designed the frames himself. The maxim ‘Genius endures, the rest is mortal’ refers to the timeless existence of ideas and genius, which transcends the limits of the artist’s own life.

Okuń depicted human mortality quite starkly in the painting. In the foreground, he painted a catafalque covered with bouquets of pink chrysanthemums, amongst which a violin rests. This instrument also appeared in other ‘musical’ compositions as a symbol of creation.

Behind the catafalque, four women glide along, singing — personifications of the four strings and sounds of the violin, in mourning attire, with their arms crossed over their chests and their heads covered by long, black veils that shroud the rest of their bodies. The first two, on the left-hand side of the painting, are in fact the same figure shown in profile, with half-closed eyes and dark brown, wavy hair pinned low at the nape of the neck. The third woman is the only one looking at the viewer. She looks down slightly, peering furtively from beneath her veil, as if discreetly checking who has turned up at the funeral. She resembles the muse from the painting *The Philistines*. The fourth woman is looking at the violin, as if wishing to cast a final farewell glance.

In the background stretches a distant Italian landscape with Renaissance architecture amidst the hills, featuring a visible campanile. The background serves as a reminder of what a brilliant landscape painter Edward Okuń was.

In 1984, the painting was acquired through Christie’s auction house in New York by the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.

A brief biography of the artist

Edward Franciszek Mateusz Okuń was born on 21 September 1872 in Wólka Zerzeńska (now part of the Wawer district of Warsaw), into a noble family. His life story begins rather dramatically. At the age of five, Edward lost his father, and five years later his mother as well. His maternal grandparents took charge of looking after the boy and his younger sister, Zofia. Perhaps these difficult experiences toughened Okun, shaping him into a young man who was very conscious of his artistic choices, whilst the considerable fortune he inherited from his parents enabled him to pursue them freely.

Edward began his artistic education (1890) in Wojciech Gerson’s Drawing Class, but after a year, weary of academic plaster casting, he enrolled at the Kraków School of Fine Arts (1891–1893), but after completing a few semesters he fell out with a lecturer and left the institution. In search of true art, he went to study in Munich. For the following year, he studied at the school of the Slovenian painter Anton Ažbe (1862–1905), and then, from 1894, in Professor Karl Raupp’s (1837–1918) Naturklasse at the Munich Academy. His financial independence enabled him to travel to the epicentre of modern art, which at that time was Paris. As early as the turn of 1894 and 1895, he was studying at the Académie Julian in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens (1838–1921). However, he did not allow himself to be swept away by the artistic freedom of Paris.

Marriage and art

Disillusioned by the avant-garde movements, he returned to Poland in 1895. His return to his homeland unexpectedly led to a romantic relationship. The painter fell in love – and his feelings were reciprocated – with his close cousin (second cousin), Zofia Wanda Tolkemit. They were married after obtaining a papal dispensation. Their kinship was so close that the Okunis decided against having children. Instead, they devoted their entire lives to art, a choice undoubtedly made easier by their comfortable financial circumstances. Zofia shared her husband’s passions and also became his muse and favourite model.

After their wedding (1897), the Okunis moved to Munich, where the painter honed his craft at the school of the famous Hungarian realist, Simon Hollósy (1857–1918). They then moved (1898) to Italy. They settled on Capri and then in Rome, which remained their home until 1921. In the neo-Gothic Villa Strohl-Fern, not far from the famous Villa Borghese, Okuń, following in the footsteps of many artists, rented a studio. Italian landscapes, nature, and motifs and stylisations became a very important part of his artistic output.

The painter’s artistic output

Edward Okuń was well known in artistic and literary circles. The success of his first solo exhibition at the Krywult Salon in Warsaw (1899) brought the painter recognition and led to a long-standing collaboration with the famous literary magazine *Chimera*. Okuń, a lover of poetry, was one of the magazine’s key illustrators until 1907, whilst his cover illustration *Noc* became iconic. In Munich, he collaborated with the Art Nouveau magazine *Jugend*. He also illustrated works by Jan Kasprowicz, Leopold Staff and Stefan Żeromski.

Just as he was drawn to the visual and literary arts, Edward Okun was also deeply moved by musical themes. The abstract, ephemeral nature of music strongly stimulated the painter’s sensibility, merging in his art with the mysteries of inspiration, creation and the artist’s genius. It recurred in works such as ‘The Death of Paganini’, ‘The Philistines’, ‘Chopin’s Mazurka’ and ‘Musica Sacra’. And finally, in the eponymous painting *Four Strings of a Violin*, the most intriguing of all, which is held in the collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson, in the United States.

The final years of the artist’s life

The Okunis returned to Poland in 1921 and settled in Warsaw, in a tenement house they had purchased at 12 Old Town Square. It became the artist’s home, studio and storage space for his works. He also designed the polychrome decorations adorning its façade.

Edward Okuń became a professor at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts (renamed the Academy of Fine Arts in 1932). He was a member of the ‘Sztuka’ Society of Polish Artists and vice-president of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. During the annual opening of the Zachęta Salon in December 1922, he gave President Gabriel Narutowicz a guided tour; he witnessed the fatal assassination attempt by the painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski on the head of state and, together with one of the aides-de-camp, apprehended the perpetrator.

During the Second World War, the Okuni family remained in Warsaw. Following the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, during which many of the artist’s works were destroyed along with his tenement house in the Old Town, they moved to Skierniewice, where on 17 January 1945 Edward Okuń was killed on the street by a stray bullet. He was buried in his father’s grave at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.