Jan Matejko: life and works

Jan Alojzy Matejko (Polish pronunciation: [jan aˈlɔjzɨ maˈtɛjko] (listen); also known as Jan Mateyko; 24 June 1838 – 1 November 1893) was a Polish painter, a leading 19th-century exponent of history painting, known for depicting nodal events from Polish history. His works tally large scale oil paintings such as Rejtan (1866), the Union of Lublin (1869), the Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations following God (1873), or the Battle of Grunwald (1878). He was the author of numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish monarchs in scrap book form, and murals in St. Mary’s Basilica, Kraków. He is considered by many as the most applauded Polish painter, and sometimes as the “national painter” of Poland. Matejko was in the course of the notable people to get an unsolicited letter from the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, as the latter tipped, in January 1889, into his psychotic breakdown even if in Turin.

Matejko spent most of his animatronics in Kraków. His teachers at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts included Wojciech Korneli Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz. Later, he became director of the institution, which in era was renamed the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. A number of his students became prominent artists in their own right, including Maurycy Gottlieb, Jacek Malczewski, Józef Mehoffer and Stanisław Wyspiański. He is regarded as “the Father of the Młoda Polska” Arts and Crafts motion in Poland.