Dialog on Soul and Fate
Stanislaw Vincenz (1888—1971)
LAUSANNE (SWITZERLAND)
ABOUT EXHIBITION
Stanisław Vincenz with Michael Marbach, Heiligenschwendi, 1961
Stanisław Vincenz, Adelboden, 1966
“We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence —
spread out before you,
You up there walking or sitting,
Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.”
(Walt Whitman — this poem was translated into Polish by Stanisław Vincenz in 1921)
In 1964, because of the writer’s deteriorating health, the Vincenzes moved to Lausanne. Stanisław Vincenz died there on January 28, 1971. He was buried at the Pully cemetery, and in 1991, after the death of Irena Vincenz, both ashes were placed in the cemetery of St. Salvator in Kraków.
Stanisław Vincenz, Lausanne, 1966, photo by C. Huber
“Even if it somehow turned out that none of the people had been immortal so far, humanity should continue to seek immortality, seek allies, perhaps even many of them, and still not strong enough, and seek this hand in the universe and beyond the world that would lead it through this abyss. The longing must go on and be inflamed.
– Perhaps it would even awaken those who are already asleep in the sleep of death.”
(Stanisław Vincenz, Outopos, 1941)
“He was tall, huge, heavy, with a round head that was large and broad, and with a pair of unusual blue eyes. These eyes were physically blue, but they were blue in another way: their gaze came from elsewhere, from a lost land where there is mischievous humour and longing that restores freshness and clear depth to love. I would very much like God the Father to be like Stanisław Vincenz.”
(Jeanne Hersch, O Stanisławie Vincenzie [About Stanisław Vincenz], 1971; Stanisław Vincenz – jego obecność [Stanisław Vincenz – His Presence], 1992)