Chopin Statue, Warsaw

Chopin Statue in Warsaw

The Chopin Statue is a large bronze statue of Frédéric Chopin that now stands in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths Park aka Łazienki Park, adjacent to Aleje Ujazdowskie (Ujazdów Avenue).

It was designed in 1907 by Wacław Szymanowski for its planned erection on the centenary of Chopin's birth in 1810 but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I. The statue was finally cast and erected in 1926.[1]

Statue destroyed by the Germans (1940)

The statue was blown up on May 31, 1940,[2][3] during World War II, and was the first monument destroyed by the occupying Germans in Warsaw.[4] According to local legend, the next day a handwritten sign was found at the site which read: "I don’t know who destroyed me, but I know why: so that I won’t play the funeral march for your leader."

Professor Oskar Sosnowski designed the pedestal and basin, which are made of red Wąchock sandstone.

The original mould for the statue, which had survived the war, made it possible to cast a replica, which was placed at the original site in 1958.[1] Since 1959, free piano recitals of Chopin's compositions have been performed at the statue's base on summer Sunday afternoons. [5]

The stylized willow over Chopin's seated figure echoes a pianist's hand and fingers, and the Polish eagle's head on the right end.

A 1:1-scale replica of Szymanowski's statue stands in Hamamatsu, Japan. There are also preliminary plans to erect another replica along Chicago's lakefront, in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park, for the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth (2010).[6]

Szymanowski's statue was the world's tallest Chopin monument until the unveiling, on March 3, 2007, of a slightly taller, modernistic bronze in Shanghai, China.

References

  1. 1 2 Encyklopedia powszechna PWN (1976), vol. 4, p. 372.
  2. ↑ Warszawa - Pomnik Fryderyka Chopina w Łazienkach Królewskich Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ Wysadzenie pomnika Chopina w Warszawie przez hitlerowców Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Kotkowska-Bareja, Hanna (1970). Pomnik Chopina. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. p. 47.
  5. ↑ Jabłoński, Rafał (2002). Warsaw and surroundings. Warsaw: Festina. p. 107. OCLC 680169225.
  6. ↑ Chopin Monument in Chicago

Coordinates: 52°12′53″N 21°01′41″E / 52.21472°N 21.02806°E / 52.21472; 21.02806

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