Jan Matejko( 1838-1893) Rejtan, or the Fall of Poland
1866 oil on canvas
282 cm × 487 cm( 111 in × 192 in) Royal Castle, Warsaw
Masters of
Central Europe
Beautiful and Monumental Painting from Poland and Czechoslovakia
Americans who lived during the Cold War may remember the countries of Central Europe 1 primarily as the satellite buffer states dominated by the Soviet Union, their people living behind the“ Iron Curtain” under the oppression of totalitarian governments. We also remember the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and its invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to suppress attempts to reform the hard-line Communist regime.
Prior to these events we know from history how Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to England after his famous meeting with Hitler, optimistically reporting that his policy of appeasement meant“ peace for our time.” It didn’ t work. The following year the Nazis invaded Poland, igniting World War II. In 1944 the Hitler regime set about to systematically destroy the city of Warsaw( and others), using flamethrowers and explosives to raze its notable buildings and edifices: castles, palaces, houses, bridges, and great libraries. Warsaw and its memory would be obliterated from the face of the earth.
Over many centuries, the Slavic regions of Central Europe were repeatedly overrun by their stronger neighbors. They continually struggled to affirm their ethnic and cultural identities and gain political selfdetermination. In the West, we scarcely learned anything in school about these regions— neither their long histories nor their cultural achievements. It was all too easy to dismiss these places as political sinkholes and cultural backwaters in the grand scheme of things. With the exception of musical composers like Chopin, Dvorák, Smetana, and Bartók, we in the West have not considered Central Europe as sources of great artistic achievement compared to places like France or Italy. For example, do we know anything about Polish painting and whether it even existed? Be assured that it flourished, and in the late 19th century and into the 20th,
Polish and Czech artists of great skill attained international renown.
After the sudden unraveling of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the former Soviet satellites gained national sovereignty for the first time in centuries and formed democratic governments. As these regions opened up to greater freedom of travel and the influence of the Internet, we of the West gained greater access to the cultural heritage of the Slavic peoples of Central Europe. Let us take a look at some of the work of four outstanding artists of the region, three Polish and one Czech, whose names and reputations had for decades been eclipsed.
Jan Matejko 2 was born in and died in Kraków, one of the oldest cities in Poland and one of its major centers of academic and cultural life( mercifully, it survived WWII relatively unscathed). An ardent patriot, he is best known for his grand and majestically detailed paintings of the former glories of Polish history.
40 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE