“The Mute of Kampen” — Hendrik Avercampin Zbigniew Herbert’s Archives

The present article analyses the rough drafts of Zbigniew Herbert’s essay on Hendrik Avercamp — the seventeenth century Dutch landscape painter who specialized in winter landscapes and scenes with numerous tiny figures. The author attempts to reconstruct the compositional idea for the essay and establishes facts concerning the research work done by Herbert concerning the life and work of Avercamp, confronts the findings with the present state of research and considers the issue of the biographical dimension of the painter’s artistic output as one of the keys to solving the interpretative probl... Mehr ...