Battle of Grunwald (painting)

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Painting Battle of Grunwald
Battle of Grunwald
Jan Matejko , 1878
426 × 987 cm
oil on canvas
National Museum Warsaw

The Battle of Grunwald ( Polish : Bitwa pod Grunwaldem ) is a history painting by the Polish painter Jan Matejko from 1878. The 426 centimeter high and 987 centimeter wide picture is executed in oil on canvas. It shows the conflict known in Germany as the Battle of Tannenberg , in which Poland and Lithuania prevailed against the Teutonic Order in 1410 . Matejko stages the death of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Ulrich von Jungingen , in the center of the picture . The Battle of Grunwald is in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw and is considered the most famous work of art in Poland.

description

The composition of Matejko's large painting is extremely complex and detailed. He followed in his portrayal of Jan Długosz's chronicle . To the left of the center is the death scene of the Grand Master von Jungingen, shown in the white costume of the Teutonic Order and riding a white horse. He is killed by two anonymous peasants with wild expressions who have been identified as Lithuanian by Danuta Batorska . One of them carries the Mauritius lance . In the center of the picture leads the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Vytautas , dressed in red, who is shown on horseback and with a raised sword. Behind him is the Polish King Władysław II. Jagiełło , which is attributed to a minor role in the battle. Saint Stanislaus , the patron saint of Poland, can be seen in the sky above the battle . The attack of the German knights on Władysław II is shown around the three outstanding personalities of the Grand Master, Grand Duke and King, while the capture of the camp of the Teutonic Order can be seen in the upper left corner of the picture.

Emergence

Matejko painted the picture at the time of the partitions , when there was no separate Polish state. Hence the story of the devastating defeat the Poles inflicted on the Germans had become a historical myth , a meaningful tale that was found in history books such as the three-volume work Karol Szajnocha Jadwiga i Jagiełło 1374 do 1413 (1855 and 1861) and in history painting "to warm the heart" was told over and over again. When the power of the Prussian partitioning power increased enormously after the establishment of the empire in 1871, Matejko, influenced by Szajnocha's depiction, decided to make the battle of Grunwald the subject of a monumental painting. In 1874 he made his first studies, in the following year he began working on canvas. In 1878 he completed work on the painting. On the one hand, he showed an antiquarian interest in the historical event, which was evident in the historical fidelity of the costume, while the tumult of the battle arose from his own imagination. In 1877, Matejko visited the historic battlefield, which was interpreted as a symbol of Polish independence. Both Prussia and Russia gave him permission to enter the Polish territories under their rule, fearing negative reactions if refused.

When Matejko presented his battle near Grunwald to the public for the first time on September 28, 1878 in the Kraków City Hall , he met with enthusiastic reactions. and the following day the city council awarded the artist a golden scepter to recognize him as a leading Polish artist. In 1879 the painting was shown in Warsaw , Saint Petersburg , Berlin , Lviv and Budapest . In 1880 Matejko sent it to the Paris Salon . The artist received both a French government award and a Sèvres vase .

tendency

Jan Matejko: Battle of Grunwald , detail: The death of Ulrich von Jungingen

Matejko's "painted with anger" picture is considered to be his most outstanding work and the most famous painting in Poland.

Matejko did not aim at a realistic representation of medieval events, but he used, as the American art historian Richard Brettell judges, "the story for current political goals and disguised a grim but frustrated nationalism under the mantle of history painting". Various anachronisms in armament and armor can be identified. Historical research today also doubts that the Grand Master fell at the hands of ordinary foot soldiers.

Matejko uses artistic means to symbolically charge Jungingen's death by depicting one of the two foot slaves who attack him as an executioner with a red hood and an executioner's ax, the other half-naked as a pagan , but who uses his holy lance to strike. With this the painter wants to express the widespread thesis that the Teutonic Order betrayed its faith by engaging in war on the still pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century instead of converting it to Christianity through conviction ; at the same time he had betrayed the German-Polish friendship, the symbol of which is the lance, which Emperor Otto III. in the year 1000 the later Polish king Bolesław Chrobry is said to have given. For this, the Grand Master, as the highest representative of the order, is now punished with death. Other symbols such as the sinking flag of the Teutonic Order and the figure of St. Stanislaus of Krakow , who hovers in the clouds above the event, complete the picture program.

Owners and storage locations

The Battle of Grunwald in the National Museum in Warsaw

The painting was acquired by Dawid Rosenblum from Warsaw as early as 1878 . After his death in 1902, the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts acquired the Battle of Grunwald and exhibited it publicly in Warsaw. It was presented in the National Museum in Warsaw .

During the Second World War the painting was evacuated and hidden from the Germans. During the attack on Warsaw on September 7, 1939, the Battle of Grunwald was brought to Lublin in eastern Poland by Stanisław Mikulicz-Radecki and the young painters Stanisław Ejsmond and Bolesław Surałło . After arriving in the city on the morning of September 9th, both painters were killed in a bombardment by the German Air Force. The painting was hidden in the Muzeum Lubelskie by its director Józef Edward Dutkiewicz , the curator Maria Żywirska , another museum employee and an employee of the city. This was necessary because the occupiers had intended the battle of Grunwald to be destroyed as part of the Germanization policy under Hans Frank . The Gestapo questioned his wife Stanisław Ejsmonds, Janina Ejsmond, and the employees of the National Museum several times in Warsaw about the whereabouts of the Battle of Grunwald , and members of the SS were also looking for her. When these efforts were unsuccessful, Joseph Goebbels offered a reward of first two and later ten million Reichsmarks for their discovery. The painting was hidden in a counter in the museum's library. When the German occupiers claimed this room in 1941, the painting was removed from its hiding place on April 9, 1941 and buried in Lublin. In order to distract attention from the hiding place, a fictional message was broadcast on Polish radio in London as early as 1940 that the battle of Grunwald had safely arrived in the British capital. The occupiers continued their search in Lublin, in the course of which several Poles were killed. On October 17, 1944, the painting was taken from its hiding place. It was in poor condition, the entire surface was covered with mold. In 1949 the restored work was exhibited again in the National Museum in Warsaw. In 1990, 2000 and 2012 restorations were carried out again.

literature

  • Danuta Batorska: The Political Censorship of Jan Matejko . In: Art Journal 51, No. 1 (1992), pp. 57-63.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Grunwald by Jan Matejko  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Danuta Batorska: The Political Censorship of Jan Matejko , in: Art Journal 51, No. 1, (1992), pp. 57-63, 60.
  2. ^ Witold Molik: Poland. "Poland is not lost yet". In: Monika Flacke (Ed.): Myths of Nations. A European panorama. An exhibition of the German Historical Museum under the patronage of Federal Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. Volume accompanying the exhibition from March 20, 1998 to June 9, 1998 , Köhler & Amelang, Munich and Berlin 1998, p. 302 f.
  3. ^ Witold Molik: Poland. "Poland is not lost yet". In: Monika Flacke (Ed.): Myths of Nations. A European panorama. An exhibition of the German Historical Museum under the patronage of Federal Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. Volume accompanying the exhibition from March 20, 1998 to June 9, 1998 , Köhler & Amelang, Munich and Berlin 1998, p. 303.
  4. ^ Witold Molik: Poland. "Poland is not lost yet". In: Monika Flacke (Ed.): Myths of Nations. A European panorama. An exhibition of the German Historical Museum under the patronage of Federal Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. Volume accompanying the exhibition from March 20, 1998 to June 9, 1998 , Köhler & Amelang, Munich and Berlin 1998, p. 303.
  5. Battle for collective memory: How Poles and Germans conjured up the Tannenberg myth . Deutschlandradio Kultur. Pp. 3-4. July 14, 2010. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  6. ^ Richard Brettell: Modern Art 1851-1929. Capitalism and Representation . Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 198.
  7. Sven Ekdahl: The battle near Tannenberg 1410. Source-critical investigations. Vol. 1: Introduction and sources. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982.
  8. Marek Renzler: Understanding Matejko's painting The Battle of Grunwald ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on info-poland.buffalo.edu, accessed May 12, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / info-poland.buffalo.edu
  9. ^ Danuta Batorska: The Political Censorship of Jan Matejko . In: Art Journal 51, No. 1 (1992), p. 61.
  10. ^ Danuta Batorska: The Political Censorship of Jan Matejko . In: Art Journal 51, No. 1 (1992), pp. 57-63, 62.