Cemetery Angels - exhibition of photographs by Mieczysław Wroński

Angel from Latin angelus, from Greek angelos and Hebrew mal’ak, means messenger. The term refers to the function of these incorporeal spirits as messengers of God performing multiple tasks. Their mediation between the divine and human worlds comes to the fore. They were sent by God to guide people on the path to salvation. Theologians, poets, painters and children speak of them.

Angelic themes, broadly conceived, appeared in Polish art as soon as Christianity was adopted. We encounter them in the tympanums of portals, in palaces, museums, churches and also in cemeteries. All these representations are inspired by biblical and apocryphal texts. They appeal to the viewer from Gothic church vaults and Baroque altars or Classical tombstones, where they stand in reverie as messengers of God and singers of his glory, protectors of men and sorrowful mourners, or finally heralds of the last things. As a rule, artists sought to depict angels in human form with wings, with the faces of youths or children, sometimes dressed in splendid robes or completely naked and barefoot (as a symbol of innocence and detachment from earthly matters). Depending on the attribute, their symbolism also varied, e.g. an angel with a sword symbolised God’s wrath, with scales symbolised justice and with instruments of torment God’s mercy. This pattern of representation dates back to ancient Christian times. In sacred art, there are also depictions of angel heads alone, usually surrounded by clouds.

Angels in sepulchral art do not actually appear in earnest until the Romantic era and, as can be seen, have become extremely popular. Today, there is hardly a cemetery that does not feature an angel theme. After all, the angels became emissaries of the Most High so that we would go to the Promised Land with the hope that He who created the angels would lead man with them and with their help to the ‘new heavens and new earth’. They too are to prepare the world for the second coming of God. Of course, these most beautiful cemetery angels, appealing to the viewer with their great depth of symbolism, were created in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the well-known stone workshops of Kraków, Tarnów, Bochnia or Mielec.

Mieczysław Wroński

Born in 1947 in Rakszawa. Computer scientist by profession, lives in Stalowa Wola. He has been interested in photography since childhood. The exhibition ‘Cemetery Angels’ is his second individual exhibition. His first exhibition was ‘Couples’, which was presented in Stalowa Wola, Rakszawa, Leżajsk, Łańcut and Rzeszów. In addition, he has presented his previous photographic works at several collective exhibitions throughout the country. He participates in many photographic competitions and open-air photographic events. In his photographic explorations, he very much likes to return to his favourite places and subjects, trying to capture their form and moods as he once remembered them. One such theme is precisely that of the Cemetery Angels.