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The Drawings of Bruno Schulz
German
271 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
3 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
About the author
Bruno Schulz
121 books723 followersBruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher of Jewish descent. He was regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century.
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 3, 2020
*** 4.25 ***
I found Bruno Schulz' story much more interesting than his art, but I am fascinated by the way his brain worked... His drawings, despite not being trained in art, are very compelling, if not great as pieces of art. However, there are those among them that are pure gold, very successful in conveying the artist's intent and touching something deep inside the soul. He has a moody, dark and at times very provocative subject matter and uses not only shape and tone, but very archetypal symbols, which have a way to reach across time and types of viewers and make you uncomfortable with their blatant meaning. stripping you bare more than the subjects on his page... My lower than 5 stars rating is more for the collection of the work in this particular book, although I guess i shouldn't expect much more when most of his works were destroyed during the Fascist Regime in the forties . Would recommend it to the fans of Egon Schiele and early 20th century European art...
I found Bruno Schulz' story much more interesting than his art, but I am fascinated by the way his brain worked... His drawings, despite not being trained in art, are very compelling, if not great as pieces of art. However, there are those among them that are pure gold, very successful in conveying the artist's intent and touching something deep inside the soul. He has a moody, dark and at times very provocative subject matter and uses not only shape and tone, but very archetypal symbols, which have a way to reach across time and types of viewers and make you uncomfortable with their blatant meaning. stripping you bare more than the subjects on his page... My lower than 5 stars rating is more for the collection of the work in this particular book, although I guess i shouldn't expect much more when most of his works were destroyed during the Fascist Regime in the forties . Would recommend it to the fans of Egon Schiele and early 20th century European art...
December 30, 2009
Reading in tandem with "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass."
Plenty of weird pictures of humbled men kneeling at the feet of toweirng domineering women.
It's a shame that not much more of his work survived--then again, it's an egregious loss that he and so many others did not survive the Nazis...
Plenty of weird pictures of humbled men kneeling at the feet of toweirng domineering women.
It's a shame that not much more of his work survived--then again, it's an egregious loss that he and so many others did not survive the Nazis...
February 10, 2013
More snowday-reading at the Bowdoin library. A seemingly comprehensive look at Schulz's sketches and illustrations, and an interesting essay about the masochism of Schulz's female-foot-kissing men and Venus in Furs (which he claimed to be illustrating to fend of questions while working on said series of drawings).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews