1797 -1875 · Grodno, Warsaw and Rome

Cavalry charges, battle smoke and national memory make January Suchodolski one of the great military narrators of Polish romanticism.

January Suchodolski was born in 1797 in the Grodno region. Joining the Warsaw Cadet Corps in 1810, he received military training there which included drawing and topography. This dual culture determines his entire career: he observes uniforms, horse movements and the structure of a field with the eye of an officer, but transforms them into stories charged with emotion. Captain during the November insurrection of 1830 -1831, he notably participated in the battles of Wawer, Grochów and Iganie and drew his comrades in arms. After the failure of the uprising, he remained in Poland then stayed in Rome, where Horace Vernet's battle painting nourished his sense of movement and the staging. The Battle of Somosierra returns to the charge carried out on November 30, 1808 by Polish light horsemen in the service of Napoleon. Suchodolski does not treat the episode as a cold survey. The slope, the thrown horses, the batteries and the smoke make the difficulty of the assault experience, while the collective momentum constructs a heroic image of Polish history. The artist also paints episodes from the Napoleonic Wars, the 17th century campaigns and more peaceful equestrian scenes. His commitment also continues in the cultural life of Warsaw: he participates in the founding of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1860, then in that of the Museum of fine arts in 1864. Died in 1875, he left a work where military experience, political memory and romantic spectacle of the horse are inseparable. The "January Suchodolski" selection notably compares Battle of Somosierra. His reading favors movement.

Suchodolski not only paints the moment of a charge: he gives the horse, the slope and the smoke the responsibility of carrying an entire national memory.