Matejko’s epic 'Astronomer Copernicus: Conversations with God,' has gone on display at London’s National Gallery.
FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/PAP/EPA
Jan Matejko’s epic ‘Astronomer Copernicus: Conversations with God,’ has gone on display at the National Gallery in London.
Initially planned for last year but postponed because of the pandemic, the exhibition is the National Gallery’s first presentation of a painting by a Polish artist.
The exhibition is the National Gallery’s first presentation of a painting by a Polish artist.FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/PAP/EPA
Matejko painted the enormous canvas (225 cm by 315 cm) in 1873 to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
Copernicus is one of the most important names in the history of science for his 1543 theory proposing that the Earth and all the planets in the solar system orbit the Sun.
Matejko painted the enormous canvas (225 cm by 315 cm) in 1873 to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.Public domain
The painting is on loan from Krakow’s (southern Poland) historic Jagiellonian University, one of Europe’s oldest, founded in the 14th century.
The gallery is also displaying a 1543 copy of Copernicus’s ‘De revolutionibus orbium coelestium,’ (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
Matejko was born in Kraków in 1838 and is known for his historical paintings, which depict major Polish political and military events.Public domain
The National Gallery in London is the most important gallery in Great Britain and one of the most visited museums in the world.
Its collections include around 2,300 paintings, mainly of Western European painters, from the mid-thirteenth century to 1900.
The gallery will also display a 1543 copy of Copernicus’s ‘De revolutionibus orbium coelestium,’ (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).Public domain
Artists whose works are exhibited there include: Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, Titian, Sandro Botticelli, Jan van Eyck , Claude Monet, Diego Velazquez and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The exhibition will run until August 22, 2021.
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