Jan Matejko

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jan Matejko - self-portrait

Jan Alojzy Matejko (born July 28 or June 24, 1838 in Cracow , † November 1, 1893 ibid) was a Polish painter of patriotic history paintings . He is considered the most important history painter in Poland.

Life

Jan Matejko was born the ninth of eleven children. His mother died early and so his older brother Franciszek had a great influence on his upbringing. In 1852, when he was just 14 years old, he began studying art at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts . His teachers included Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz . Even then he was suffering from an eye disease, but this did not prevent him from being considered one of the most talented students. After graduating from the Cracow Academy in 1858, he received a two-year scholarship abroad, which he used to study at the Royal Art Academy in Munich , where he enrolled in Professor Hermann Anschütz's painting class . After a short stay in Vienna in 1859/60 with Christian Ruben , he returned to Cracow and in 1873 became director of the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1874 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts .

Matejko and his wife Teodora had five children (Tadeusz, Jerzy, Beata, Helena and Regina), of which his youngest daughter died shortly after birth. He himself died on November 1, 1893 in his house and was buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery. Immediately after his death, a citizens' committee got involved in building a museum . The house at ul. Floriańska 41 was bought from the family for this purpose. The museum was opened in 1904. Today some of his paintings can also be admired in the Cloth Hall ( Sukiennice ) in Kraków's Market Square. The art academy he attended in his hometown bears his name. He was considered the most important Krakow painter prince and had a significant influence on the intellectual life in Poland and partly in the neighboring countries, especially in Czech painting.

Matejko's most famous students include Stanisław Wyspiański , Jacek Malczewski , Józef Mehoffer , Witold Pruszkowski and Maurycy Gottlieb .

Since 1980 he has given its name to the Matejko Icefall , a glacier break on King George Island in the archipelago of the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica . It is there that Painters Cove is named in honor of him and Jacek Malczewski .

plant

tendency

Wilhelm von Kaulbach's “symbolic-historical” style had a major influence on Matejko's style , which did not aim to portray an event as accurately as possible from a historical perspective, but rather left the artist room for interpretation and the opportunity to incorporate knowledge of what had happened to let. The essential thing is therefore not the representation of a true event, but the idea content expressed in a picture. Characteristic for his painting are the great magnificence, abundance of historical props and group scenes with a theatrical effect.

The Third Partition of Poland , through which Poland ceased to exist as a state, was formative for Matejko and his history painting. In the struggle of the Poles for their sovereignty, one of his brothers was killed. Matejko saw the glorifying portrayal of Polish history , especially the Middle Ages, as a means of preserving national identity and patriotic encouragement of his compatriots in the time of the Russification and Germanization efforts of the three partitioning powers. Matejko himself said:

“Art is a kind of weapon; one must not separate art from love for one's homeland. "

Battle of Grunwald (1878, oil on canvas, National Museum Warsaw)

The monumental painting Battle of Grunwald was created between 1872 and 1878 and was enthusiastically received by the public.

From 1887 to 1891 he and his students J. Unierzycki, T. Lisiewicz, Kasper Żelechowski , Włodzimierz Łuskina and others produced a cycle of 11 pictures for the main building of the Lemberg Polytechnic University .

In 1889 Matejko painted the picture The Admission of Jews . It is shown how, after the anti-Jewish riots during the People's Crusade, 1096 Jewish refugees were accepted by Duke Władysław I Herman in Płock . The Duke is painted in conversation with the leader of the Jews. Matejko identified him as Benjamin von Tudela , a well-known Jewish traveler of the 12th century who, in reality, was never in Poland. In contrast to the German crusaders, the Poles are portrayed as tolerant and hospitable, but at the same time the Jews clearly appear as members of a foreign race , whose oriental costume and drastic gestures form a strong contrast to the stressedly relaxed and European-clad Poles. Matejko wanted to show that the admission of the Jews not only brought financial advantages for the Poles - in the picture valuable gemstones are given as gifts - but also dangers.

Another example is a large-format painting that shows King Bolesław Chrobry with the Szczerbiec , the coronation sword of the Polish kings forged in the 12th century, striking the Golden Gate when he entered Kiev in 1018 , but this could never have happened .

To incorporate his personal assessment of the story in the paintings, Matejko repeatedly used the popular figure of Stańczyk , the court jester of Kings Sigismund I and Sigismund II August who died in 1560 . In a painting from 1862, he left him alone during a ball of Queen Bona in 1514 and worried about the news that the Muscovite Russians had conquered Smolensk . The associated accusation against the, in his opinion, inadequately active leadership of Poland is underlined by the fact that Matejko lent the court jester his own features.

The situation is similar with the painting The Prussian Homage from 1882. It shows the moment of the greatest Polish triumph over the subsequent division of Prussia, when the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albrecht I of Brandenburg-Ansbach , ancestor of the German Emperor, the King Sigismund I swore the feudal oath in a gesture of humility in 1525 . The scene is solemn, the colors festive and optimistic, but Stańczyk, sitting at Sigismund's feet, shows with his worrying gestures and facial expressions that the future for his country was nevertheless bleak.

From a Polish point of view in particular, Matejko is seen as a patriot and representative of Polish positivism , whose works served as educational, identity-creating heroic narratives for the patriotic edification of the people in the time of oppression by the dividing powers. The American art historian Richard Brettell comments on Matejko's most famous work, the Battle of Grunwald or Tannenberg, as follows:

“So the painting used history for current political goals and disguised a grim but frustrated nationalism under the mantle of history painting . The sheer visual energy of the canvas has no precedent in the 19th century. "

In addition to large oil paintings, Matejko also made watercolors and collected weapons, clothing and handicraft utensils. He became known, among other things, for his portfolio with 44 pencil drawings - Poczet królów i książąt polskich (Eng. Entourage of Polish Kings and Princes), which appeared in Vienna in 1892. Each portrait was accompanied by a brief biographical essay by historians from Kraków University . The portraits of the rulers were for the most part purely imaginary, but had a great suggestive effect. The collection was so commercially successful that there were several new editions, some of which were colored by an unknown hand. The portraits can still be seen today on the złoty notes and continue to shape the history of Poles to this day.

Works (selection)

gallery

literature

Web links

Commons : Jan Matejko  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. HM Słoczyński "Matejko" wyd. Dolnośląskie, Wrocław 2000
  2. angelfire.com
  3. a b c d e Jan Matejko . Broadcasting Berlin-Brandenburg
  4. a b Barbara Ciciora: Jan Matejko in Munich. zeitenblicke, 2006, accessed March 5, 2016 . (PDF; 261 kB)
  5. ↑ next door to door. Poland - Germany. ( Memento from November 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg , September 21, 2011
  6. Feliks Szyszko: The Impact of History on Polish Art in the Twentieth Century ( Memento from September 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  7. Description of the architecture by Volodymyr Wujcyk: Architectural Ensemble Lviv Polytechnic
  8. ^ Ezra Mendelsohn: Painting a People. Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art. Brandeis University Press, University Press of New England 1999, pp. 202-205.
  9. Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel, Andrea Huterer: Editorial: Lehrstück . In: Osteuropa , Issue 11–12 (2006), pp. 5f.
  10. culture.poland.com ( Memento from May 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  11. Matejko Jan. Archived from the original on January 7, 2016 ; accessed on April 6, 2020 .
  12. ^ Richard Brettell: Modern Art 1851-1929. Capitalism and Representation . Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 198.
  13. ^ Poczet królów i książąt Polski . Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  14. The Gallery of Polish Kings on artyzm.com
  15. Jan Matejko . Culture.pl. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
  16. Anna Straszewska: Matejko, Jan (1838) . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples . Volume 87, Saur, Munich et al. 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-023253-0 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).