Conversations With God - Jan Matejko's Copernicus

An Ognisko Polskie - the Polish Hearth Zoom Event in conjunction with The National Gallery and the Polish Cultural Institute.

From May 2021, The National Gallery in London will be displaying Jan Matejko’s (1838–1893) epic painting ‘Astronomer Copernicus’ otherwise known as “Conversations with God” (Astronom Kopernik, czyli rozmowa z Bogiem), on loan from Kraków’s historic Jagiellonian University.

Matejko is regarded as the national painter of Poland. His huge paintings, showing iconic events from Polish history, are part and parcel of Poland’s national identity.

This painting celebrates one of the most important names in the history of science, Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543); known for his theory, published in 1543, which proposed the solar system with the sun at its centre and the planets orbiting around it. Matejko painted the enormous canvas in 1873 to mark the 400th anniversary of the astronomer’s birth.

Alongside the Matejko portrait, the Gallery will also be displaying a 1543 copy of Copernicus’s ‘De revolutionibus orbium coelestium’; the publication that marked a turning point in human understanding of our place in the universe.

This is a rare opportunity to see one of Poland’s most loved works of art in the United Kingdom, and Ognisko Polskie has collaborated with The National Portrait Gallery and the Polish Cultural Institute to bring you a very special Zoom event, featuring Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, Professor Andrzej Szczerski, Director of the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, and Christopher Riopelle, The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at The National Gallery.