DOI Heft:
II. Ostatnie prace Jana Białostockiego
DOI Artikel:Artykuły
DOI Artikel:Białostocki, Jan: Matejko's "Wernyhora": a Slav prophet and bard
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19643#0190
who is amazed or even terrified by what he sees. There is no joy in the picture. The knives on
the ground remind us of the dramatic moments of the Humań Massacre. In Wernyhora's face
there is excitement and fear, in those of the listeners mediation and expectation. It is as if the
representation of what will happen, which moves Wernyhora so violently, has not yet been
communicated in words to the others. The listeners do not look into his face. It is only the
onlooker facing the picture who sees it. Those who surround Wernyhora seem to look into
themselves. Only the child on the łeft looks beyond the picture. The others do not see, only the
prophet actually sees; the others have to rely on his words.
In the sketch the bard shades his eyes with his left hand, probably in order to see better. In
the painting Wernyhora gestures with hand as if he were defending himself against the vision
and wanted to drive it away. What kind of news is it, good or bad? What is it that terrifies him
so much? The scenę is set at night. The landscape cannot be made out. Bats hover against a
livid sky. The large shield of the moon hanging above the horizon is located precisely behind
the head of the bard. It crowns it like a nimbus and contributes a specific decorum. It
transforms the peasant hurdy-gurdy player into a spiritual ruler and admits him to the great
family of bards and prophetic seers, well known in the European iconographic tradition.
Robert Campin (Master of Flemalle), master of "disguised symbolism" in his Salting
Madonna (National Gallery, London), in the fifteenth century and Rembrandt in his etching
The Holy Family against the window (1654, B. 63), in the seventeenth century had both
adopted a solution similar to that arrived at by Matejko: the fireplace screen in Campin and
the window ornament in Rembrandt suggest the symbolic shape of the nimbus around the
head of the Virgin at the same time as they exist as actual materiał objects. In Matejko, the
moon which crowns the head of the peasant bard endows him with a specific nobility and
incorporates him into the group of prophetic seers.
We can surmise that Matejko, when he undertook to paint Wernyhora, desired to add a
portrayal of the Slav bard to the gallery of kings, leaders and heroes he had already painted.
Certainly there were two figures in iconographic tradition which can be strongly associated
with the picture: Homer and Ossian. In iconographic tradition it is the blind singer Homer
who — like Wernyhora — dictates his words to a secretary who diligently notes them down.
It is Homer, also, who is surrounded with admirers who wre fuli of awe and who listen with
fuli attention, as in Ingres' Apotheosis. But excitement and dramatic tension do not belong to
Homer's iconography. Both in Rembrandt and in Ingres the patriarch of poets classically
calm, composed and distant, and looking into himself, turns rather towards the inner world
of his imagination than to the spectres appearing outside his mind1 °.
The majesty and grandeur of Wernyhora and the attention he commands are those of
Homer; the excitement, the bard's inspiration, and the dramatic experience are those of
Ossian. Already in the frontispiece of the 1762 edition of Fingal the engraving by Issak Taylor
after a drawing by Samuel Wale — freąuently repeated in later editions — showed the bard
186
the ground remind us of the dramatic moments of the Humań Massacre. In Wernyhora's face
there is excitement and fear, in those of the listeners mediation and expectation. It is as if the
representation of what will happen, which moves Wernyhora so violently, has not yet been
communicated in words to the others. The listeners do not look into his face. It is only the
onlooker facing the picture who sees it. Those who surround Wernyhora seem to look into
themselves. Only the child on the łeft looks beyond the picture. The others do not see, only the
prophet actually sees; the others have to rely on his words.
In the sketch the bard shades his eyes with his left hand, probably in order to see better. In
the painting Wernyhora gestures with hand as if he were defending himself against the vision
and wanted to drive it away. What kind of news is it, good or bad? What is it that terrifies him
so much? The scenę is set at night. The landscape cannot be made out. Bats hover against a
livid sky. The large shield of the moon hanging above the horizon is located precisely behind
the head of the bard. It crowns it like a nimbus and contributes a specific decorum. It
transforms the peasant hurdy-gurdy player into a spiritual ruler and admits him to the great
family of bards and prophetic seers, well known in the European iconographic tradition.
Robert Campin (Master of Flemalle), master of "disguised symbolism" in his Salting
Madonna (National Gallery, London), in the fifteenth century and Rembrandt in his etching
The Holy Family against the window (1654, B. 63), in the seventeenth century had both
adopted a solution similar to that arrived at by Matejko: the fireplace screen in Campin and
the window ornament in Rembrandt suggest the symbolic shape of the nimbus around the
head of the Virgin at the same time as they exist as actual materiał objects. In Matejko, the
moon which crowns the head of the peasant bard endows him with a specific nobility and
incorporates him into the group of prophetic seers.
We can surmise that Matejko, when he undertook to paint Wernyhora, desired to add a
portrayal of the Slav bard to the gallery of kings, leaders and heroes he had already painted.
Certainly there were two figures in iconographic tradition which can be strongly associated
with the picture: Homer and Ossian. In iconographic tradition it is the blind singer Homer
who — like Wernyhora — dictates his words to a secretary who diligently notes them down.
It is Homer, also, who is surrounded with admirers who wre fuli of awe and who listen with
fuli attention, as in Ingres' Apotheosis. But excitement and dramatic tension do not belong to
Homer's iconography. Both in Rembrandt and in Ingres the patriarch of poets classically
calm, composed and distant, and looking into himself, turns rather towards the inner world
of his imagination than to the spectres appearing outside his mind1 °.
The majesty and grandeur of Wernyhora and the attention he commands are those of
Homer; the excitement, the bard's inspiration, and the dramatic experience are those of
Ossian. Already in the frontispiece of the 1762 edition of Fingal the engraving by Issak Taylor
after a drawing by Samuel Wale — freąuently repeated in later editions — showed the bard
186