The exhibition ‘Plants and animals. Atlases of natural history in the age of Linnaeus’, May 7 – August 14, 2021

The subordination of the natural world to human needs was for centuries accepted as an axiom requiring no justification. Both the intensity and the extent of the contemporary discourse on the likely consequences of this anthropocentric intrusion are long overdue. We are thus increasingly often faced with a crucial question: is the strained relationship between humans and the world doomed to a tragic finale?

Harmonious use of natural resources is history. We are currently living in an age that many eminent scholars believe could be humanity’s last. Where we were once cradled by our surrounding landscape, today it is we who are transforming it, offensively and incommensurably.

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Royal Wilanów has the potential to serve as a microcosmic exemplification of the challenges posed by our contemporary life.

The venue for the second showing of the exhibition ‘Plants and animals. Atlases of natural history in the age of Linnaeus’ was not chosen at random. In the days of King Jan III himself, this was a noble periphery nestled in unspoilt natural surroundings, a glorious, relaxing retreat. Today, however, it is part of a large metropolis, an expanding city, whose rapid spread is destabilizing the natural rhythms of the local ecosystem.

Placing this extraordinary visual story in the spatial context of this historic Polish landed estate reminds us that communing with nature has always been an aesthetically exquisite and spiritually enriching experience for humankind. Contact with nature has provided the best conditions for contemplation, rest, and reflection. The parks and gardens of Wilanów are like a palimpsest – reworked again and again in successive centuries, their form and the conceptions shaping them have evolved repeatedly. But their function has remained unchanged: to bring delight to the eye and a refuge from the cares of everyday life.

Sobieski was not only a consummate strategist and effective soldier; he was also a man of outstanding erudition for his times. A bibliophile and philomath, he was also passionate about horticulture. He personally examined designs for new beds and avenues, and monitored the progress in their creation. He had rare plants imported from abroad to start a collection of exotica, himself planted lime trees, and his pride and joy was his market garden, in which he could grow vegetables, fruit, and his favourite herbs.

This estate was a veritable Arcadia, lacking nothing, and the renewable resources and life cycle of nature guaranteed diversity and plenty all year round. The topos of agriculture is of particular significance in Wilanów – not only as homage to its proprietor’s fundamental skill in administering the bounty of nature, but also as a political allusion: a metaphor for organic labour, which in his day was held up as the hope for a renewal of the face of the Polish Republic. This is borne out by the scenes from Virgil’s Georgics that adorn the walls of the royal apartments.

The iconography of the palace – both its interiors and its elevations – abounds in direct associations with natural motifs. The decoration of the residence reflects a holistic approach to the question of cosmic order – there are references to the cycle of the four seasons, to the four elements, and to the alternation of day and night. Painted and sculpted garlands of fruit, and images of all kinds of vegetation underscore the splendour and plenty not only of the residence itself but of the country as a whole under the rule of the ‘Lion of Lechistan’. But there is one more interpretative layer in the programme of the palace narratives, which is linked above all with citrus fruits. As citrus trees fruit and blossom at the same time, they came to be seen as a natural symbol of fertility, the attribute of Queen Maria Kazimiera. Interestingly, oranges also feature frequently in the correspondence between the royal spouses as a reference to the temperature of their feelings for each other.