Romanticism in Poland, a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture, began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems in 1822.
Their art featured emotionalism and irrationality, fantasy and imagination, personality cults, folklore and country life, and the propagation of ideals of freedom.
(— Opening stanza of Pan Tadeusz, Kenneth R. Mackenzie translation)Other notable Polish Romantic writers active abroad included Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński and Cyprian Kamil Norwid.
A number of Romantics remained active in divided and occupied Poland, including Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Wincenty Pol, Władysław Syrokomla, and Narcyza Żmichowska.
[3] Polish Romantic painting is exemplified in the work of Artur Grottger, Henryk Rodakowski, or the equestrian master artist Piotr Michałowski (now at Sukiennice), and Jan Nepomucen Głowacki considered the father of Polish school of landscape painting, as well as the renowned historical painter Leopold Loeffler invited to Kraków by Matejko to teach the future luminaries of the Young Poland movement including Wyspiański, Tetmajer, Malczewski and Weiss among others.