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Elżbieta Dutka
(Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach)
E-mail: elzbieta.dutka[at]us.edu.pl
ORCID: 0000-0002-5404-2586
DOI: 10.31261/FLPI.2025.09.14
„Fabrica Litterarum Polono-Italica” 2025, nr 1.
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Abstract in Polish, Italian
Introduction: “A Considerable Amount Has Been Written about the Mountains”
In his book Góry niewzruszone. O różnych wyobrażeniach przyrody w dziejach nowożytnej kultury europejskiej [The Immovable Mountains. On Various Representations of Nature in the History of Modern European Culture], after referring to the famous praises of the mountain landscape by Carl Gustav Carus and John Ruskin, Polish art historian and mountain lover – Jacek Woźniakowski adds: “And above all, there have been quite a few mountains painted” (Woźniakowski 2011: 12). The statement does not so much reflect the enormity of the material to be examined as it has bitter and sceptical overtones. However, in the preceding pages, while summarising his search for mountains in European painting, he declares: “Nowhere in these works of art, did I find mountains” (Woźniakowski 2011: 9). As soon as in the introduction Woźniakowski mentions “mountain kitsch” and signals numerous doubts related to the possibility of depicting summits in paintings. He discusses what precisely stymies the efforts of painters who undertake this task:
So is there any particular difficulty to be overcome if one wishes to duly depict mountains? Is it perhaps in the contrast between the matter of the subject and the matter of the painting? […] How can one render the crystalline resistance of a rock, the jagged line of a ridge, the glaring whiteness of snow, the hard tonal contrasts with the use of oil or the watercolour? How can one enclose colossal size differences within picture frames [on canvas – E. D.] (Woźniakowski 2011: 10).
In an analogous way, paraphrasing Woźniakowski words, a literary scholar might note: “A lot has been written about mountains.” As in the case of painting, the abundance of mountain-themed literary works seems to promise much. However, here too, enthusiasm is mixed with scepticism [1].
Mountains are a challenging topic for writers. Mountains are also a problem for literary scholars, who, in their search for summits in literature, make use of tools suggested by various methodological schools and research trends: from thematology to regionalism and geopetics to comparative and intersemiotic approaches. In recent decades, a distinct study of mountain space – namely, the field of mountain studies – has crystallised in the global scholarship. This is a new terminological proposal and a new approach to the issue.
[1] Jacek Kolbuszewski mentions his conversation with Wiktor Ostrowski, a renown Polish mountaineer, in 1978, during which the latter “remarked that the ‘absence of mountains’ is strikingly characteristic of contemporary mountaineering literature” (Kolbuszewski 1982: 623).