Final Minutes

The composition combines a genre scene with tragic symbolism. At the bottom, in the foreground, a young man lies with his eyes closed on a stretcher adapted into a bed, partially covered by a blanket. To the right of the bed, a woman is depicted wringing out a towel over a basin to place it on the dying man's forehead. To her right stands a table with a bottle and a jug. From the other side, an older man in a hat – his father – steps towards the stretcher. He places his hand on his son's shoulder and looks ahead, resigned to his fate. The scene takes place against the backdrop of a large white screen, which occupies most of the sheet and symbolises the unknown after death. At the top right, emerging from the screen as if it were part of his attire, the figure of an angel stands out – the Genius of Death with the face of a young man. He places his right hand on the white canvas, whilst in his lowered left hand he holds a laurel branch. In the background on the left, behind the screen, a group of workers in hats is depicted. They have gathered for a discussion against the backdrop of factory buildings with smoking chimneys. Evidently, it was at the factory that the main character of the work suffered his fatal injury. Emphasising the social foundations of critical realism, the artist supplements them with symbolic and semantic features.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery