Matejko, Jan: Prussian homage, 1882

Prussian homage, 1882
oil, canvas, 388 x 785 cm;
National Museum in Krakow

10 April 1525 r. a ceremonial act took place at the Market Square in Krakow: the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and after converting to Lutheranism, the first secular prince of Prussia, Albert Hohenzollern, he paid tribute to the king of Poland – Zygmunt the Old. This tribute ended the three defeats of the Order of the Cross – w 1410 r. near Grunwald, in the Thirteen Years' War (1454-1466) and finally in the last one, caused by Albrecht (1519-1521). Two days before the tribute, 8 April 1525 r. a pact was concluded between the Polish king Zygmunt I, on the one hand, and Jerzy, Margrave of Brandenburg, the Prince of Legnica, Frederick, and Albrecht on the other, according to which the state of the Order of the Cross, transformed into Ducal Prussia with a hereditary ruler, has been secularized. Zygmunt I was criticized today, that “being able to easily end the loser, He preferred to show him his sentence gracious”. Jan Matejko looked at the solemn act of feudal tribute remembering the further course of events: w 1657 r. – in spite of opposition opposition, so from noble circles, and bourgeois – the dependence of Ducal Prussia on Poland ceased, and after the coronation of Frederick I as king of Prussia, this state became part of the kingdom of Prussia. In combination with the artist's other historical canvases “Prussian homage” – despite the perfectly characterized heads and the clarity of the main elements of the composition and the splendor of the costumes – gives the impression of a more superficial composition, devoid of this dramatic tension, characteristic of Matejko's painting. In the color structure of the whole, a huge stain of red cloth spread on the podium, on which the act of homage is played out, muffles other colors, not in harmony with this red.