I imagine him going from one continent to another, from one war to another, from one royal treasury to another to arrive at this sum, in three volumes entitled The museum, a world history. I imagine him, from his native Warsaw, surveying the trenches of History as a child, then taking the tangent far from the Iron Curtain, and ending up in France to pursue a career at the CNRS.
Krzysztof Pomian embodies the discretion and power of the researcher, walks like at home in the corridors of Time, with an assumed gluttony for the 17th and 18th centuries. And, to clarify this portrait with necessarily impressionistic brushes, I would say that the man walks between knowledge – because he is a philosopher – and the history of collections – because he is a historian. With as keywords for this meeting Pierre Bayle, Sartre, Rubens and Gene Kelly…
The musical choices of Krzysztof Pomian
Gene Kelly I’m singing in the rain
Jeremy Przybora and Jerzy Wasowski The old gentlemen’s cabaret
Janis Joplin Mercedes-Benz.