Jan Matejko
Painter – 1838-1893
The 20th century saw a resurgence of emphasis on the nation state, and in Krakow, Matejko became the representative of the heroic moments of the Polish people, which were presented in huge paintings that can be seen today in Krakow and Warsaw.
Krakow was then under Austrian rule and offered a wider freedom than the Prussian and especially the Russian part of Poland.
His father was a painter.
Matejko studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow 1852-1858.
He has painted around 300 oil paintings, all themed around the history of Poland.
The Polish people were familiar with Polish history, but with Matejko, for the first time, the people had their history illustrated.
Along with the later literary works from different romantic authors, Matejko is thus one of the shapers of the entire Polish historical perception of the 20th century, and perhaps he is in fact the most important, because literary authors are inspired by his paintings, which are of course based on facts, but are just as much a product of Matejko’s imagination.
Matejko’s paintings often have meanings that go beyond their original meaning. One example is Stanczyk, which refers to events long after Matejko’s death.
The court jester has just discovered a document announcing the loss of Smolensk to Russia in 1514 and he is in shock. The original court jester, Stanczyk, has been given Jan Matejko’s face – in other words, when Matejko painted the picture in 1862, he had no idea what the original court jester looked like, so he inserted his own face.
Smolensk came back under Polish rule in 1611, but was lost again later and is now part of Russia. It was the site where 20,000 Polish non-commissioned officers were killed on Stalin’s orders during WW2. World War II, when he exterminated the elite that could threaten future Russian dominance in Poland.
Smolensk is also where the plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski was destroyed during an attempted landing in dense fog in 2010. Here, the president and the entire top Polish administration – 96 people in total – died during a foolish landing attempt, which was probably only carried out because the president was a hothead who INSISTED on going go to a memorial service for the 20,000 NCOs killed.
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