Matejko, Jan (1838-1893)

Kraków 1838 – Kraków 1893
Matejko’s interest in history painting developed when he was a student at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1852-1858, mentored by Wojciech Stattler and Władysław Łuczkiewicz. Then, he honed it in Munich and briefly in Vienna. The firsthand experience of the Munich, Austrian, and French art scene taught him interpreting history as national myth and at the same time lesson to the contemporary public. Applying this approach to Polish history, he deliberately steered his career. He won the admiration of many and criticism of some. To the international public, his paintings saturated with Polish national symbolism were often difficult to understand. His appreciation of history and its monuments also inspired his activity as a conservationist, collector, and pedagogue. In 1873, he was appointed director of the School of Fine Arts in Kraków. Occasionally, his conception of the painter’s mission as focused on interpreting history and cultivating the partitioned nation’s patriotic awareness became the source of tension between Matejko and the students seeking more creative freedom, like Stanisław Wyspiański. Yet under Matejko’s leadership solid training was provided to a generation of talented artists, among them Wyspiański, Jacek Malczewski, and Józef Mehoffer.
[Anna Jezierska, Małgorzata Macura]

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