https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2025.12.30
Antoni Rząsa (1919–1980) was a well-known Zakopane sculptor. At the turn of 1961 and 1962 he travelled to Italy. It was the one and only independent abroad trip for the artist who came from a small, Subcarpathian town and spent his adult life in Zakopane. The trip is impressive in its length and the richness of the program. It made such a strong impression on the artist that after his return he needed a long time to start sculpting again.
The travel account is based on the archive collections of the Antoni Rząsa Gallery in Zakopane. It is an extraordinary collection of postcards (over 400) that Rząsa bought in the Italian cities he visited, and the “Italian Notebook” — a small address index serving as a notebook with useful addresses, basic phrases in Italian and a planned route. It also contains a travel diary, written irregularly.
The article attempts to look at Antoni Rząsa’s journey from an anthropological perspective, in order to learn about his intentions and choices, to understand what the artist was looking for and what he found in the places he visited. The Zakopane collection of postcards is treated as an afterimage that remained under the eyelids of a traveler, an “anonymous semiotician” (as Jonathan Culler wrote about tourists). It is, therefore, a kind of sketchbook that captures what the sculptor found most significant and most delightful.
The image on the postcards is complemented by words in the “Italian Notebook.” Surprisingly, Rząsa described the impressions caused by his contact with masterpieces very briefly. He devoted more attention to accounts of “traveling:” time spent on trains, impressions caused by dynamically changing landscapes, new smells and sounds.
Antoni Rząsa did not bring any typical tourist souvenirs from Italy. To some extent, this was due to financial constraints, but he overcame them deciding to buy an impressive number of postcards. This choice reflects the nature of Rząsa’s experience as a traveler, his “tourist gaze” (according to John Urry’s sociological category). The authenticity of individual experience was important to him. That is why he bought photographic reproductions, which gave an objectively “true” view of the world. He used words – adding what the image does not convey: the multi-sensory nature of physical sensations and the temperature of interpersonal relationships.
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English