By Mariusz Karpowicz

Looking at the 17th-century arts in Poland from the perspective of other centuries, in particular the periods immediately before and after, we can say that they were better in artistic terms, closer to the world best and more individual than in the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 18th century.  
Polish art owed a great deal to its patrons.  For it is not only the artist that creates a work of art, to a large extent it is also determined by the customer.  Even if the artist was a foreigner, the customer was always Polish.  The contents that he imposed, the forms that he determined, were always the Polish side of the work.  Therefore, the credit for the fact the in the 17th century Polish art was more clearly domestic and was so good aritistically should, to a considerable degree, go to Polish artistic patronage.
In about 1600 there was a short time when Polish art, early Baroque architecture in particular, kept pace with the Roman artistic avant-garde.  Another peak came at the times of Ladislaus IV and John Casimir; the third, in turn, at the end of the century under Sobieski's reign.