Author: Henryk Kuna (1879, Warsaw – 1945, Toruń)
pinkish granite from Wołyń
The property of the National Museum in Warsaw, inv. No. 156029/b
Fond by Alfons Karny in the debris of Warsaw, in the Natonal Museum since 1956
Deposit at the Dom Pracy Twórczej in Radziejowice
Enveloped at the base by ivy, the granite slab in a pinkish tone, set directly on the lawn, presents a figural scene. It is densely filled with full-length figures of elderly men gathered in a circle, turned toward the centre of the composition and partially overlapping one another. Their elongated forms have been brought out by the artist’s assured, long, relatively shallow chisel strokes. The foreground figure on the left – despite being unusually shown from the back – stands out and enlivens the composition, breaking the pronounced vertical rhythm established by the other, frontally depicted figures in long garments with intricately arranged folds, through the depiction of its massive, rounded back. The arms of two figures on the right, bent at the elbows and slightly raised, likewise deliberately disrupt this vertical orientation. The heads, inclined in contemplation, with varied profiles and set at different depths, underscore the concentration of thought and will focused on the group’s mysterious ritual.
The relief represents one of the scenes from Part II of Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) – the Romantic masterwork by Adam Mickiewicz. According to scholars, the scene depicted here is On the Way to the Cemetery, that is, the moment when the Guślarz, in dialogue with the chorus, calls participants to the ritual, saying: “Darkness everywhere, silence everywhere, / What will it be, what will it be? […] And whoever does not heed the call, / In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit! / Do you see the Lord’s cross? […]”.
The slab installed in the park at Radziejowice is the only surviving fragment in Poland of the unrealised Monument to Adam Mickiewicz, designed in 1931- 1933 by Henryk Kuna for the city of Vilnius. Kuna’s winning competition design, preceded by thorough studies of both Mickiewicz’s likenesses and his literary work, was conceived as a monumental composition approximately 17 metres high, consisting of two elements. It comprised a bronze, full-length figure of the poet-pilgrim in stride, about 6 metres high, crowning the monument, and a four-sided pedestal clad with twelve relief panels carved in granite and arranged in three tiers. In the composition of the four-sided sculpted core of the monument, Kuna referred to representations of the pagan Światowid, further developing this idea with four masks/faces of the deity crowning the multi-tiered pedestal. In this form, the ambitious artist indicated both the sources of the poet’s work and the outcome of his poetic struggles, literally translated into granite in twelve panels illustrating the content of Mickiewicz’s most important work.
The realisation of the Vilnius monument, carried out in stages and planned for unveiling in 1935, encountered unforeseen difficulties. In 1933 Kuna completed a wooden model of the statue and plaster casts of the reliefs, which began to be carved in granite. Meanwhile, the newspaper Wileńskie Słowo launched an aggressive campaign against both the work and its creator, rooted in antisemitic hostility, even denying the artist of Jewish origin the right to create a monument to the Polish national poet. Despite these circumstances, which slowed public fundraising, delayed the work, and provoked further attacks, Kuna completed his project. Only in 1939 was a final location designated, on the axis of St Anne Street and Syrokomla Avenue. Seven granite relief panels were transported from Warsaw to Vilnius, and the bronze casting of the statue of Mickiewicz was nearing completion at the “Kranz and Łempicki” foundry. However, the outbreak of war in September 1939 and subsequent actions by the occupying forces led to the irreversible destruction of the poet’s figure.
In Vilnius, six reliefs illustrating Mickiewicz’s poem and a single mask of Światowid have survived, preserved in the State Institute of Art. In 1984, the large panels were incorporated into the surroundings of a new monument to Adam Mickiewicz by Gediminas Jokubonis. These include scenes from Parts II and III of the work: At the Cemetery, The Phantom of the Evil Lord, Konrad’s Cell, Madame Rollison, Kmitowa and Father Piotr with the Senator, Konrad’s Meeting with Father Piotr, and On the Way to Exile.
Text: Elżbieta Charazińska
Editing: Beata Fiugajska
