Church of St. Alexander

"The destroyed Warsaw left an indescribable impression on me (...) I began to walk through it, along and across, wading through mounds of stones and bricks, climbing the hills of rubble, jumping over gaps and bomb craters. I left early in the morning, returned at dusk, and drew right away, where I was" — this is how Kulisiewicz recalled his return to the city devastated after the Warsaw Uprising. This marked the beginning of a series of vedute titled Warsaw 1945, an artistic transformation of the view of Warsaw after World War II. In the presented drawing, we see the ruins of the neoclassical Church of St. Alexander. The depicted space is deserted, with the gaping hole in the façade of the circular-shaped temple taking center stage. The entire composition is rendered in dark ink and sepia tones, with the building's form modeled through shading, within the somber hues. The grim, melancholic mood of the drawing reflects despair and sorrow — due to the city's devastation, Tadeusz Kulisiewicz's apartment, which housed his studio, was destroyed. The distinguished graphic artist, one of Poland's most famous wood engravers, irretrievably lost his entire artistic output, including about 70 woodblocks and most of his graphic prints.