Meleager ? (Winter)

The sculptures decorating the balustrade of the retaining wall and the stairs connecting the upper and lower terraces of the Baroque Garden are the most historically and artistically valuable sculptural elements of the Wilanów gardens. Their authorship is associated with one of the most outstanding representatives of the Warsaw Rococo sculpture, sculptor Johann Chrisostom Redler, and his workshop. They include the allegories of the Four Seasons, which can also be interpreted as the four stages of human life, made in Kunów sandstone, as well as four pairs of putti, symbolizing the Stages of Love, a pair of putti with sphinxes and flower baskets and vases. These themes which stem from the ancient era were one of the favourite themes in the late Baroque era. The number four, which characterizes both cycles, was considered the symbol of durability and universality of the material world. Therefore, it was used to recreate the spatial and temporal aspects of the universe. Hence the four directions of the world, four elements, four wind directions and four seasons. Both the four stages of love: Courtship, Kiss, Fear, and Quarrel, as shown in the form of pairs of putti remaining in mutual, dynamic, expressive relationships, as well as the personifications of the Four Seasons, are subject to the relentless course of time, passing and changes, just like the surrounding garden. They are the reflection of the cyclically repeated periods both in nature and human life – from flowering to vegetation, from birth to death.

In Greek mythology, Meleager was one of the members of the expedition of the Argonauts. He also organized the Calydonian boar hunt. In a dispute which arose between the hunters over the skin and head of a boar, Meleager accidentally killed his uncle, the brother of his mother Altea. Altea cursed his sun and threw a piece of wood into the fire which, according to Fate, marked the end of his life. Meleager felt unbearable pain. He tried to extinguish it, but to no avail. His destiny was fulfilled. Meleager died. In art, he was depicted primarily hunting the Calydonian boar. In the Wilanów collection, he is shown trying to extinguish the heat consuming him.

Agnieszka Świtek