Stańczyk Jana Matejki Stańczyk by Jan Matejko

Good morning With weather like this we're having now every day must be used for cycling So once again yet another time I'm heading out on my bike This time to Niepołomice I'm at the Wisłana Cycling Route This is called Velomałopolska This is also part of the European route EuroVelo 11 Kraków lies in that direction And over there is Niepołomice and that's exactly where I'm heading And if we kept going along the Vistula we should theoretically arrive in Warsaw There at the National Museum It's a portrait I'd like to tell you about today It's Stanisław of Jan Matejko This canvas measures approximately 88 by 120 cm The melancholy jester is depicted here as sitting alone in a small room and in the background we see a ball taking place in the hall as a figure who worries about the fate of the nation while his contemporaries simply go on with their lives Stańczy It's an outstanding work by a mature artist It should be emphasized tha Matejko was just 24 years old when he painted this picture Let us begin by recognizing that the figure of Stańczyk himself is a unique phenomenon in Polish history and culture First quite a lot was written about him by his contemporaries already in the sixteenth century he was known as insightful observer of reality and a wise man Fascination with Staniszczyk returned in the works of writers and artists In the 19th century during the period of partitions Poles turned to their history as a source of identity and resilience preserving national identity Stańczyk was the jester at the court of the last Jagiellons He was still alive when Queen Bona she left Poland in 1556 by then already very old it is estimated she may have been born around In the year 1470 Stańczyk was most likely his surname although he may also have had another name Stanisław but above all Stańczyk was a noble surname present since the 15th century At the royal court In modern sources Stańczyk was described as a jester knight In one of the royal accounts the term "wounded knight" even appeared It is therefore not unlikely tha at he was indeed a nobleman but some injury had cut short his knightly career Perhaps it was he He had previously served as a captain Stańczyk mentioned in the royal accounts of Jan Olbracht and Aleksandra Jagiellonka Jester doesn't sound to us today like a serious profession It seems therefore that in the guise of wisdom There's a certain paradox hidden here but it 's not so strange when we consider that this He was a jester of noble birth—aristocrat knight and undoubtedly a well-educated man Financially he also fared well Numerous references concerning him have survived in the royal accounts payments made to Stančík at the king's request under King Sigismund the Old Stančík's individual was being reviewed ot only in calculations but also in 16th-century literary texts such as works by authors of that era Klemensa Janickiego Jana Kochanowskiego or Mikołaja Reja Contemporary writers and poets They regarded the royal jester as a wise and truth -loving man yet also associated him with jests derived from the European jester's repertoire which we also encounter in anecdotes and fools from other countries Such a tale must be told about how Stańczyk made a bet with King Sigismund the Old proving to him that Kraków is full of physicians and the He began pretending to have a toothache It turned out that every one of the townspeople questioned by the jester He had a different piece of advice for him Thus Stańczyk demonstrated that each of us is to some extent a healer Right now you see The painting depicts exactly this story and surprisingly it 's also a work by Jan Matejko Though it doesn't look like it That's why it's such an early depiction—Matejko painted it when he was only eighteen Clearly Thus Matejkowska's fascination with Stańczyk dates back to the time when the master was still a teenager I arrived at the castle in Niepołomice and right here is the sculpture by Stańczyk This is the spot because One of the most famous anecdotes associated with Niepołomice centers precisely on the court jester e last of the Jagiellonians Once upon a time a hunt was organized here a staged hunt with a bear prepared in a cage and the one released Stańczyk supposedly fled before that bear And King Sigismund the Old mocked him He said "You' ve started out not like a knight but like a jester " You were fleeing from a bear To which Stańczyk replied to him a greater fool is this jester who sets a bear free from its cage is letting it loose to its own doom a doom far greater than anyone could have imagined He could not have foreseen it then The bear startled the horse on which Queen Bona was riding Queen Bona fell from that horse and since she was pregnant unfortunately she miscarried She gave birth prematurely He did not survive of course She had no more children and thus Zygmunt August remained her only son Zygmunta Starego Since he himself did not live to see descendants the splendid line ended with him Once a grand residence of the Jagiellonians the palace now stands as a silent witness to time Of course Stańczyk surely could not have foreseen then right here in these Niepołomice how far-reaching the consequences of this unfortunate unting but since his contemporaries recorded this anecdote it truly began to be seen as if he were such a prophe foresighted And in exactly this role would Stańczyk appear in the paintings by Jan Matejko Matejko painted Stańczyk many times Today he is part of the Kościuszko Foundation's collection In New York his painting "Stańczyk and the Bishop" depicts the jester alongside the bishop of that time Krakowska Street It is of course a Prussian tribute located in Kraków's Cloth Hall Stańczyk appears in this most famous pose but he is also housed at the National Museum in Warsaw mage of the suspension of Sigismund's drum in which Stańczyk reappears once more And so Finally we have this image which I’d like to tell you more about today—the Stanisław of Jan Matejko from the year 1862 Although this is one of the most renowned works in our collection this painting presents certain difficulties interpretation The issue lies in the fact that according to the account of Marian Gorzkowski personal e secretary of Matejka the full title of this work is Stańczyk at the Ball at the Court of Queen Bona on e Smolensk tragedy And for some reason now part of the publication twisted this title and changed it to Stanisław of the Jester During the ball at Queen Bona's court news arrives of the loss of Smolensk But we encounter an inconsistency here because Smolensk was captured by the Grand Duchy of Moscow In 1514 Bona did not become queen until 1518 Smolens He disappeared during the time when Queen Barbara Zápolya was the wife of Sigismund II Augustus Some researchers thought the queens might have confused Matejce but that's not the case In the image we find details tha They indicate that this did not happen in 1514 but nearly twenty years later First there is a list on the table and on the list is a date: Anno Domini 1533 and beneath it the inscription "Samogitia " at is in Latin "diligence " And this isn't entirely obvious but it likely refers to The issue was that in 1533 the truce we had with Moscow expired and Sigismund the Old He decided to go to war then to reclaim the lost Smolensk he had previously lost Those were truly the times of Queen Bona Smoleńska in fact never managed to recover And incidentally it turned out that the Lithuanian general mobilization was completely unprepared for combat And that was it likely refers to the correspondence that so unsettles our Stańczyk Jan Matejko could have alluded to this in such a way o their doubts about the chances of success of the January Uprising which had already been underway when the artist unveiled his painting for like that common uprising in Lithuania And the insurgents like their contemporary Matejces proved inadequately prepared to fight Moscow Moreover Matejko painted a comet visible in the night sky outside the window and it so happens that in the year 1533 exactly A comet appeared the very one that contemporary scientists had debated including in this particular dispute Nicolaus Copernicus took part This comet was called the third comet as comets appeared in succession during the years 1531 1532 and 1533 The entire reverse movement issue was still present at that time comets that is objects moving in the opposite direction to that of planetary motion Generally it was believed that this was a foreboding of some terrible misfortune By the way beyond that window besides the night sky is visible outline of the clock tower from the Wawel Cathedral There is no doubt that Matejko painted you precisely fit the helmet to the tower in its current form The problem is that this helme The project by architect Kacper Barzanki dates back only to the 18th century which of course can be pointed out e painter was criticized for depicting the tower in Stanisław's time but first of all Matejko He devoted a great deal of time to studying history It's unlikely that someone would behave this way He confused it with that tower And secondly he did such things in other paintings as well For instance in the Prussian Homage In the background we see the Cloth Hall and the tower of St Mary's Church complete with details that are also anachronisms Matejko most likely deliberately set historical scenes within the space of Kraków's Main Market Square contemporary He wanted the architecture to be familiar to viewers of his paintings and also wanted the paintings to be read in the current context For him this was more important than accurately portraying historical realities And finally one more very important matter must be addressed Disturbed Stańczyk Jan Matejko He pressed his own face against it He did however perform a certain ritual namely he improved his nose Jan Matejko after all had A crooked nose resulting from a childhood fracture is clearly visible in photographs of Jan Matejka Although I have the impression that photographers also slightly retouched that nose every time There's always a certain clarity that makes it hard to see just how crooked it truly was Jan Matejka's childhood It wasn't easy The fact that he had a crooked nose came from the time he broke it as a child Father didn't notice it and it grew crooked He likely didn't notice because he had in total until 11 children and worse still he was left an orphan when John was just seven years old Thus our master was raised Actually without a mother—just with that father who was hardly considered a particularly caring parent That mother Joanna— Karolina Rosberg came from a Polish-German family She was a Protestant However Jan Matejko He never managed to learn German properly despite trying However Jan's father was a musician Franciszek Xawier Matejka who was Czech precisely due to the mixing of Polish and Czech words Jan Matejko was considered a boy who couldn't express himself He was simply such a peculiar fellow He wasn't doing well at school To make matters worse he had poor eyesight which wasn't ideal for an artist Yet today we consider Jan Matejko one of the most important painters in our history—a creator of the national imagination of the Polish people The day ends my bike ride comes to a close and so does this film although the Czech threads remain They will return in future films Today I thank you very much Of course as usual information below covers details abou artworks and archival photographs which were used in this episode Primarily from the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw the National Museum in Kraków and the polona pl website And not just that Subscribe to my channel visit my blog posztukiwania pl See you in two weeks