In the documentary Wróblewski według Wajdy / Wróblewski according to Wajda, realized by Andrzej Wajda in 2015, the director recalls Wróblewski as a painter and as a friend. He speaks of a man who faced the challenges of his time and searched for his own place. Wróblewski, seen with Wajda’s eyes, is a genius, who had to wait for recognition for a long time, but who hadn’t recognized his genius himself.
Their paths crossed right after the war, when they both studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Kraków. The artist was born in Vilnius, studied at the faculty of painting and sculpture, and also history of art at the Jagiellonian University.
We all painted flowers, still life. A bowl of cherries was a constant prop in the atelier, and Andrzej Wróblewski turned around and started painting a bucket of coal and a stove. It was a manifestation against academia.
– says Wajda.
Meeting Wróblewski and seeing his works was an artistic and private breakthrough for Wajda.
Three apples, an onion, and a plate through which Cézanne captured the mystery of existence, to us became more and more foreign and indifferent every day. We saw war from a short distance (…) We took part in great changes. We knew injustice and abasement. Can a still life presenting a bowl of cherries express this? That was our question – wrote the director in his memoir Kino i reszta świata / Cinema and the rest of the world.
Wróblewski was the first one to find a form that allowed him to talk about the trauma of his generation, about cruelty and dehumanization brought by war. Remembering the moment when he saw one of Wróblewski’s paintings from the Executions series, Wajda said:
This painting decided my future. When I first saw it, I thought that what I wanted to paint, was already painted and I could never do it better. It was my first encounter with such art (…) I knew we were the voices of the dead. The dead were better, more courageous, they were killed so that we could live, and our duty was to be their voice and paint them in the scariest moments. War was our subject.