Interpretacja jako inspiracja? Dekoracja drzwi do kruchty katedry poznańskiej

In the southern porch of the Poznań cathedral there is a swinging door etched inbronze and brass, made in 1972. Together with a bronze bas-relief placed above, itwas the most important element of the decoration of the passage from the residenceof Poznań archbishops to the cathedral. Both artworks were made by Ireneusz Daczkoand Bogdan Fijałkowski – graduates of the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. Theirproject was inspired by Rev. Stefan Tomaszkiewicz, who supervised constructionwork in the cathedral, and Rev. Bolesław Dzierwa, involved in the restoration of thecathedral in Gniezno. Both priests developed an original iconographic program of the porch decoration, based upon angelistic, christological, and mariological symbolismand texts in Polish, Latin, and Greek.The figures of archangels Gabriel and Michael in the door panels have a borderwith inscriptions, monograms, angels, and zoomorphic motifs, and objects intertwinedwith climbing plants. The decoration of the door and the bas relief showingthe Assumption of Mary includes many references to the liturgy of the breviary,and points to the clergy as the recipients of the ideas represented in the porch iconography.The main argument of the paper is that the iconography of the Poznań door derivesfrom the texts by Lech Kalinowski and, above all, Zdzisław Kępiński, who in hisarticle, “The Symbolism of the Gniezno Door,” was the first to emphasize the significanceof the border and the connection of its decoration with the correspondent figuralpanels of the bronze Gniezno door.