Matejko, Jan: Battle of Grunwald

15 July 1410 a battle was fought on the fields near Grunwald in the year, in which the united Polish and Lithuanian-Ruthenian troops led by the Polish king Władysław Jagiełło achieved a great victory over the Teutonic army. It was the beginning of the fall of the German knightly order – in Poland called the Teutonic Knights, in Germany – The German Order – directed against the freedom and peace of the peoples inhabiting the lands of Eastern Europe.

Battle of Grunwald
oil, canvas, 426 x 987 cm;
National Museum in Warsaw

The painting by Jan Matejko is a masterpiece of battle painting with no equal. It is as if a section through the swirling mass of knights and horses joined in a fight for life and death.. Certain people were exposed, like for example. Teutonic Grand Master Urlyk von Jungingen attacked by two young Lithuanian peasants. It is no coincidence that they attack the Grand Master with the spear of St.. Maurice (got it as a gift from Emperor Otto III, Bolesław the Brave), one of them is clad in red, Katowice hood, because it is not so much a fight as the execution of a death sentence on the hated oppressor.

The whole picture of Matejko has something like a folk tale about it, in which good and just forces triumph over evil and injustice. Prince Witold, rushing straight ahead, fits well in this convention, monumental, with a sword held up, ready to deliver the decisive blow. In the crowd of fighting, one can also distinguish the Czech knight Jan Żiżka, the famous Zawisza the Black, and in depth, on the hill the position of the commander of the battle of Jagiełło, who was attacked by a German rider.