Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (20.1979)

countries triumphant leaders were painted; the defeated ones used to be comitted to the silent
care of history. Polish history abounded in leaders of unsuccessful campaigns, of rising which were
a failure, in generals of disasters. In Poland they were not left to oblivion, they were portrayed
in art. Tbe Christian attitude experienced in martyrdom was transferred on to the destiny of the
nation and helped to celebrate those ciushed by physical violence, but spiritually victorious.

In Polish art such were the images of Kościuszko, the defeated leader being taken prisoner
at the Maciejowice battle, of the Prince Józef Poniatowski, tumbling down in water with his
horse at the Leipzig battle. These were images in heroic tune, in a contemplative and symbolic
mood. One may point to the Henryk Dembiński portrait by Rodakowski (fig. 5), recently
analysed in a very interesting way by Professor Mieczysław Porębski6.

It may be that Academic painting has prepared the appropriate pattern for such a concept.
In Antiąuity existed also leaders, thrown by destiny from the summit of glory to the lowlands
of disaster. In such a moralizing way was for instance conceived the fortunę of Belizarius — the
prominent generał of Justinian, who, in his old age, condemned to a beggar's life is recognized
by one of his ancient subordinates. Another morał exemplum could have been the ancient Marius,
after long lasting military success having fled to Africa afraid of the people's wrath, fallen frora
the utmost dignities to the condition of a political refugee. As such he was painted, meditating
his fortunę at Carthago's ruins, by the American painter John Vanderlyn in a picture certainly
unknown to Rodakowski and nevertheless not devoid of common features' (fig. 5). To the
American however it was an academic problem of a classical theme belonging to the distant past,
demonstrating the change of human destinies under the sway of Fortuna ; for Rodakowski it was
a tragic reflection about the quite recent history of his country and nation, and not only
about the powerlessness of the individual.

In Poland during the long century of political dependence and slavery an especially powerful
role was played by literaturę, especially by poetry. Painting contributed its own especially in the
works of Jan Matejko and of Artur Grottger in that period in which the word of the poet and the
painter's image were feeding the national sentiments. The special, still always controversial
position of Matejko in the history of Polish artistic culture can be understood only against the
background of such a function of historical painting in Poland, extremely different from the
function painting had in the powerful and independent countries. There it served the authority
and was fairly indifferent to the common people : in Poland it became the most valuable contribu-
tion to keep alive the national consciousness.

Representation of important contemporary events was in 19th century Poland always
levelled against the authority — the foreign authority of the partitioning powers. And precisely
through this trend which was anti-state but pro-national —• sińce the state was alien to the na-
tion —• Polish artistic production acquired functional affinity with the critical and revolutionary
tendencies in the art of the other countries. The Funeral of the fallen in March 1848 in Berlin,
the Rue Transnonain and the Two Revolutions by Daumier are Works belonging to the same family
although their artistic ripeness overweights the sometimes almost naive paintings by certain
Polish minor masters, like Sochaczewski (fig. 6).

Besides an openly political art there existed of course an art, the political meaning of which
was disguised and became understandable thanks to the context, to analogy, to allusion. The
history of the Machabees by Wojciech Stattlei (1842) was such an allusion. Closer ones still were
pictures representing the still quite recent splendour and glory of the old Polish Commonwealth
and its predominance over the now dominating powers. Even the interest in the Polish landscape
assumed some political overtone : patriotic ideas were disguised in simple images of naturę. This
trend remained very close to the generał tendencies of 19th century art.

Eckart Vancsa, an Austrian scholar in historical painting of 19th century has recently

6. M. Porębski, „Sybirskic futro wziął" in : Ikonografia romantyczna, Warszawa, 1977, p. 13—31.

7. The picture is now in the De Young Art Museum, San Francisco.

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