Explore the Significance and historiography of this artwork, Constitution of 3 May 1791 (painting).
The painting is one of Matejko's best known works and today it is commonly seen as one of his masterpieces, an "education in national history." However, it was less well received by his contemporaries, with turn-of-the-century reviews criticizing it for being "too crowded" and with unclear composition; supporters of Matejko's previous works were much more guarded in their praise of this painting.Matejko's technique in this painting was subtly but noticeably different compared to his other paintings; authors Wrede et al. attribute this to Matejko's exploration of new techniques, but note that contemporary critiques saw this departure from his old style as the weakening form of the dying master, and did not applaud the changes. They also note that Matejko usually dedicated two years to paintings of that size; this one was completed in less than a year, during a period in which Matejko was working on other projects and suffering from stress and depression. Matejko himself was not fond of the 18th century and the Polish Enlightenment, remarking that he "would rather prefer to paint any other century". He felt compelled, however, by the anniversary of the Constitution to create an artwork commemorating the event, which he recognized as historically significant.Matejko commonly identified the characters in his paintings with a written legend, but he did not create one for the Constitution. Consequently, some characters in the painting have not been identified. A partial legend was written by Matejko's secretary, Marian Gorzkowski, and even though it provides a list of 39 characters, Wrede et al. write that his "chaotic description" is not very helpful. Modern analysis has been done by Polish historians Jarosław Krawczyk and Emanuel M. Rostworowski.
Marian Gorzkowski Jarosław Krawczyk Emanuel M. Rostworowski Polish Enlightenment