Ja, Matejko

When I'm about to paint a historical event, my mind is overwhelmed by a fiery fantasy that entangles the whole concept. Then I start to read those books that have nothing to do with it. After a while, when my mind goes in a different direction, I return to the chosen event and I start to create the picture. The work of Jana Matejka was entrusted with the care of the National Museum in Kraków in 1904. At that time, the first biographical museum on Polish soil was created, i.e. the house of Jana Matejka, which still works today as a part of our museum. Since that time, the employees of the Kustosz Museum have been studying, developing and disseminating the work of Jana Matejka. Jan Matejko was born in 1838 in Kraków. His father was a Czech, a teacher of music. His mother was from a Polish-German family. Jan had ten siblings. His older brothers instilled in him the cult of Polish tradition. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków and shortly in Munich and Vienna. He has been a researcher since his youth. He studies interior design, costumes, architecture and transfers it to his sketchbooks. While documenting Kraków, he performs much more tasks than an average student. First, I register Kraków monuments, I register the interior of Kraków churches. Then, these drawings, these sketches, will come in handy when, for example, a painting of the Kraków outskirts will be created. In the background of the painting, he will place not only the buildings of the no longer existing Wiśniczek, which burned down, but he will also place Kraków monuments, often no longer existing. In the foreground, there is a queen sitting at a table, slightly tired and hunchbacked, and she is wondering whether to pick up the cup that her personal secretary, Antonio from the macerata, offers her. A terrified courtesan standing by the queen's side as if she already feels what is about to happen. Some whispers, something is happening behind the curtain, like in a theatre. It is like a theatrical backstage and a theatre scene. Matejko has built an incredible tension. This is the first painting in which young Matejko introduces us to his theatre. A theatre of characters, a theatre of events, a theatre of history. He is perceived as a very deep conservatist. He was not like that at all. What was most annoying for us, for Poles, was the lack of common thinking about Poland. It is said that he did not like the 18th century, because there are very uninteresting costumes. In fact, he did not like the 18th century, because it was the age of defeat for the Republic of Poland. And it had to be for a patriot who was as zealous as Matejko and a very spiritual and religious person, thinking about the 18th century was a very strong internal event. Matejko was very popular in Poland and abroad. He won awards at international exhibitions. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in the most important capitals of Europe. He received many titles, awards and awards, including the French Legion of Honour. It was supposed to be a painting given to Poles. Just after painting, the artist changes his mind and announces that the painting is being donated to the Vatican. He meets with a huge number of critics. He is left speechless. The delegation, together with Matejko, brings the painting to the Vatican. And here something extraordinary happens. The Pope, receiving the gift, blesses not only the members of the delegation, not only their closest ones, but also Poland and Poles. And the next day, all major European newspapers write about it. This is an extremely beautiful example of an ambassador of a well-known person, speaking the modern language of a celebrity, on the occasion of an extremely important event. He married the 8-year-old Teodora Gebutowska, who was the object of his first youthful love. The young couple moved into a modest apartment arranged in the artist's studio. Four of their children were born there. Over time, Matejko's family moved to a tenement house near Floriańska Street, which was rebuilt according to the artist's design. Private life is a matter that we always avoid. When we talk about Matejko, we have to do it very gently. Great love for Teodora Gebutowska. The wife of Ryszard Rysow, a well-known woman in history. She is Queen Bona. She is Barbara Radziwiłłówna in Zygmunt August and Barbara. Five children are born from this relationship. But there comes a time when, for various reasons, this couple has to part. And it is a very difficult period in the artist's life. But it could have been better. Jan Matejko had a great sense of humor and we can guess it by looking at the scenes from the family or social life. Matejko was a lover of artistic crafts, and he was very fond of textiles and fabric. In a tenement house near Floriańska Street, he collected a collection that now has about 3,000 items. Only a small part of it has been exhibited so far. He used his collections when he needed props for paintings, but he also intended to create his own museum. Matejko has a collection of over 500 valuable textile objects from the end of the 15th century to the 19th century. Among them, the delight is aroused by a group associated with Jewish culture. He really liked the headdresses, rich Jewish women's hats, which in his paintings often also adorn the heads of men. And they are very famous. For example, Kościelecki in the Prussian House has a beautiful golden headdress, and in fact it is a fragment of a Jewish woman's hat from the end of the 17th century. Matejko traveled a lot. First as a student, and then as a recognized artist, exhibited and awarded in European capitals. Like many artists of his time, he visited Italy. He also traveled to Istanbul. During his voyages, he bought photographs, and their rich collection is another expression of his collector's passion. In the studio located on the highest floor of the tenement house at Floriańska Street, Matejko spent most of the day. However, he was able to combine artistic work with intensive social and educational activities. He participated in the works of the conservatory commissions. He fought with the authorities to preserve historical buildings. He co-created the National Museum in Kraków. He reactivated the School of Fine Arts and developed a modern teaching program for it. For the next 20 years, he will direct it. He will deal with financial resources for the school, with artistic scholarships for his students. More than 100 students will be trained in his class of historical painting. Among his students were people like Stanisław Wyspiański or even earlier Maurycy Gottlieb. He supports and likes Tad Majera. I understand that some people have to follow new paths. He said to Tad Majera, follow these new paths and I will stay with my old kings. Matejko designed and created, together with his students, one of the largest works of Polish monumental painting, a polychrome painting in the Mariacki Church in Kraków. A part of the presbytery is dedicated to the Mother of God, under whose name is the basilica. Angelic choirs, choirs that sing hymns to the Loretan Mother of God, choirs of cherubim and seraphim, and even a world of performances in the form of devils, which were placed on the walls of the church under the feet of angels. Polychrome is an extraordinary work. At the end of Matejko's life, it is a work in which he really led us into modernism. On the one hand, he referred this project to what was already in the church and to times associated with the Middle Ages. But on the other hand, as he himself said, I used seven colors of rainbow for the angels. He died at the age of 55, only 55, but with 322 oil paintings, portraits, several thousand sketches, 20 years of teaching and directing at the School of Fine Arts, a position in various departments, in scientific research committees. He will be a very sick, sophisticated man. As his students say about a curved shoulder blade, a slender figure, a cigarette lighter on his fingers. A man who did not spare himself and who rarely thought about himself. In 1994, we made an exhibition of 44 contemporary Polish artists in front of Matejko. What did it mean? It meant a dialogue, a discussion with the master. We wanted to ask ourselves and others who Matejko is today. The year of Jan Matejko, announced by us in 2013, became an opportunity to show him in several different aspects, to illuminate him as a traveler, as a painter, as a pedagogue, as a European. So we can look at not only his works, but also the characters of Jan Matejko, who was a really extraordinary man. Collections of Jan Matejko's collection and souvenirs of the artist's family are presented in the house of Jan Matejko, department of the National Museum in Kraków.