A Forgotten String to a Master's Bow

Jan Matejko: The Great Illustrator - An Exhibition at the Matejko House, The National Museum of Cracow (until August 31st, 2004).

Somewhere, perhaps hidden away in some exiled Count's library in Paris or London, is a copy of the elusive 'Album of Jan Matejko', a folio collection of three volumes that was published in Vienna in the 1870's. This brought together the cream of work by Poland's best loved artist of the nineteenth century, Jan Matejko (1838-1893), one of the grand old men of Polish art. Famous above all for his patriotic paintings of heroic moments in Poland's past, Matejko's work was designed to uplift hearts during an era when Poland was divided amongst the Prussians, Russians and Austrians. Grandiose royal ceremonies, legendary battle scenes, heroic calls to arms - this was the world of Matejko, and like the patriotic Czartoryski museum of the same era, his work provided 'a consolation in moments of doubt, a treasury of national feelings' at a time when Polish culture was being forcibly stamped out by Prussians and Russians (only the Austrians allowed a measure of autonomy).

Once in a blue moon, one stumbles across a volume of the Album, proudly displayed in the window of a second hand bookshop. This is always the most widely printed volume of lithographs, which brought his marvellous, swashbuckling oil paintings into the households of well-to-do Polish patriots. The other volumes, which covered his woodcuts, are now so rare that they do not even appear at auctions.

It's this largely forgotten strand of Matejko's work that provides the focus for the National Museum's current exhibition at the Matejko House, the splendid old townhouse where the artist was born (and eventually passed away) on Cracow's Florianska street. If you have a soft spot for old books, and the kind of enchanting illustrations that can be found in collections of old European folk tales, then this little exhibition is well worth seeking out - it's a gem.

The great Matejko himself was in reality an incredibly small man, but he sported a rather splendid, seer-like beard that gave him the demeanour of an omniscient wizard. His modest stature and gentle spirit were in contast to his amply-proportioned and very powerful wife, who very much ruled the roost. As the old saying goes, opposites attract, and this was the case with the Matejko marriage, and the couple brought forth a gaggle of children into the world. Sadly, family life did not remain free from tragedy, however, several of Matejko's descendants would also shine in the arts.

Besides being a master in oils, Matejko was a keen sketcher, and over the years he provided a good many illustrations for popular journals. Newspaper engravers transformed his sketches into woodcuts, and readers would keep their favourite articles and pictures in albums. The publisher Salomon Lewenthal clicked onto this, and obtained permission to bring together all of Matejko's works in a special portfolio, and it is these enchanting images that can be enjoyed at the Matejko House's exhibition. Amongst the woodcuts are crumbing old castles, princely palaces and long lost wooden villages that might have come straight out of the pages of Grimm. As it was, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the golden age of European book illustration, and Matejko's work provides a little known yet delightful strand in this tradition - a wonderful show.



The House of Jan Matejko, ul. Florianska 41, Cracow (Summer Opening Hours: Tuesday & Wednesday, 10am-7pm, Thursday & Friday 10am-4pm, Saturday, 10am-7pm, Sunday, 10am-3pm, *Closed Mondays)