Gossamer – the spectacle of golden Polish autumn
Karolina Prewęcka
Spider’s silk, known as gossamer, drifts on the wind into the unknown, entwining plants and glistening in the sun. Scientists study their origin and properties, artists find inspiration in them, and walkers view them as a beautiful, fleeting symbol of golden Polish autumns. The artist who made the subject most famous was Józef Chełmoński, whose painting 'Gossamer’ hangs in the National Museum in Warsaw.
For gossamer to occur, the weather must be right. The air temperature should ideally be around 20 degrees Celsius, humidity should remain at 30-40 per cent, and wind speed should not exceed 3 m/s. In Poland, such conditions usually occur during the autumn equinox (21 September). The temperature contrasts between the south and north of the Earth are then minimal. Spiders of various families sense these parameters thanks to sensory bristles on their bodies and begin to weave threads on which the wind will carry them so that they can find a good place to live for the winter, search for food, and colonise new areas. Spider ‘autumn travellers’ belong to several families, including the Thomisidae, Araneidae, and Theridiidae families, which include many species of these insects.
They can fly up to an altitude of around two thousand metres and fly continuously for about a month without eating for hundreds of kilometres. In Poland, there is even a proverb illustrating this natural event: ‘Around Saint Hedwig’s Day, gossamer flies by in a race.’ The feast day of this saint is 15 October.
The structure of gossamer threads is also impressive. They are made up of two proteins: fibroin and sericin, which are also components of silk thread. Although thinner than human hair, they are extremely strong yet flexible, do not dissolve in water and are non-allergenic. They could be used, for example, in medicine to make surgical threads or in the clothing industry.
Inspiration for literature
How is it that spiders fly even though they have no wings? Hanna Zdzitowiecka, writer, poet, and author of radio plays, tried to explain this to children in the middle of the last century. She had a pre-war degree in agricultural engineering, so in her story ‘Spider Airplanes’ she gave her lecture not only with charm, but also with expertise. She included the story in the collection ‘From Spring to Spring’ published in 1959, together with her co-author Stefania Szumowa, also a children’s writer and a graduate of natural science courses.
The mysterious gossamer grew into the melancholic poetics of Young Poland. In his poem ‘Gossamer’, Leopold Staff compared the thin silver threads of cobwebs floating in the air to quickly passing dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Henryk Zbierzchowski, a poet from Staff’s generation and also a native of Lviv, known as the bard of the city, admired the lightness, transience, and elusiveness of the ‘golden and spidery threads’ floating above the fields in his poem dedicated to gossamer. Only slightly older than these two artists, another poet, Zenon Przesmycki, saw gossamer as a sign of a turning point in nature, a moment of transition from summer to autumn, from warmth to cold, and even from life to death.
“Indian Summer” – a painting by Józef Chełmoński.
A painted monument to gossamer
In Polish culture, however, the greatest ‘monument’ to gossamer was created not by a writer but by a painter. Józef Chełmoński’s 'Gossamer’ is a painting that belongs to a group of iconic works of national art. It was created exactly 150 years ago, in 1875, after the painter’s return from Ukraine, in his Warsaw studio located in the European Hotel.
It is not easy to identify the subject of the painting. The viewer’s attention is drawn to the only dynamically captured fragment – the raised hand of a girl lying on the ground, a shepherdess. She makes a gesture that follows the gaze. The heroine catches the threads of gossamer. She plays with them while taking a break from hard work in the field. Cows graze in the distance. A black dog watches over the gathering. The sky is heavy and cloudy, the earth grey-green. But the scene seems idyllic. The long threads of gossamer floating above the girl distract her from her duties and introduce a different, blissful reality.
This painting, created by Chełmoński, who was only twenty-six at the time, was exhibited by the prestigious Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and caused a scandal not only in Warsaw salons. The artist was accused of banality and indecency for depicting a peasant woman with dirty feet. A reviewer for the Gazeta Polska newspaper wrote: ‘a pale, powerless and colourless painting’.
It took years for emotions to subside and for critics and the public to recognise Chełmoński’s 'Gossamer’ as an outstanding work. The Germans looted the painting during the Second World War. It was found along with many other masterpieces at Fischhorn Castle in Austria in 1945 and returned to Poland in the spring of the following year.
Where did the name of this phenomenon come from?
Not only are the scientific origins of the gossamer phenomenon and its presence in culture interesting, but so is the origin of its name [in Polish it’s ‘babie lato,’ which literally means grandmother’s summer]. There may be several sources for this, as described by researchers of the Polish language and our traditions: Samuel Bogumił Linde, Aleksander Brückner, Zygmunt Gloger, and Władysław Kopalński.
The first part may be associated with an elderly woman (baba). 'Babie lato’ would therefore refer to the late stage of this season, and the silver spider threads would evoke the long, grey hair of an elderly woman. In this interpretation, 'babie’ lato would mean late summer, the twilight of this season.
Zygmunt Gloger, in turn, associated ‘babie lato’ with ‘yarn from the Virgin Mary’s spindle’. Mary was also immortalised in the role of a woman at work, caring for her home and her loved ones. According to apocryphal sources, she was fond of sitting at the spinning wheel. ‘Babie lato’ was therefore supposed to be yarn from Mary, passed on to housewives on earth so that they would remember to prepare winter clothes for their children and orphans in need.
Gossamer occurs all over the globe, which is why in our country we often encounter spiders belonging to species native to very distant lands. Nature has thus treated the whole world to this wonderful spectacle of small insects travelling through the air. Even people who dislike or are afraid of spiders react sympathetically to their delicate ‘airplanes’. Many Poles watch them and feel their charm in a special way. Without colorful leaves, handfuls of chestnuts, abundantly fruiting orchards, baskets full of mushrooms and the threads of gossamer, it is difficult for us to imagine the golden Polish autumn.
Karolina Prewęcka
journalist, columnist, and writer, author of books – interview-biographies and biographies, including those of Bohdan Łazuka and Stanisława Celińska.
Source: DlaPolonii.pl
