Cemetery

This rather sad work shows a cemetery. It is not an ordinary view of tombstones or an attempt to show nostalgia and reverie. In the foreground, there is a real human drama, an explosion of feelings expressed by gestures and attitudes. The main and only characters in the scene are two figures: one is a living person, the other is a tombstone sculpture.

The real woman is kneeling, leaning against the grave slab. She is shrouded in a black cloak that stretches along the ground and introduces a dynamic diagonal accent to the composition amidst the calm verticals of the crosses in the background. The upturned face hidden in her hand is not visible, but the arrangement of her body and her gestures eloquently testify to her despair at the loss of someone close. Her head touches the stone. Just as she is unable to break through the wall with her head, she cannot understand that people leave to another world.

On the pedestal, there is a gravestone sculpture - a statue. It depicts a woman in a white robe, leaning towards a weeping mourner. Although it is only a stone sculpture, through her gestures and facial expressions she looks like a living person. Perhaps she has been animated by tears, pain and suffering. She seems deeply moved by the drama unfolding at her feet.

Władysław Barwicki was a versatile artist. Apart from painting and graphic arts, he worked in sculpture. The artist was able to aptly convey the mood of melancholy and reflection. He created, among other things, a tombstone of Henryk Korczak Swaryczewski, an actor from Lublin, at the cemetery in Lipowa Street, depicting a lyrnik with a boy.