Artwork Data
Artwork Location
Address
Aegonplein, entree station Mariahoeve, Den Haag
City district
Haagse Hout
GPS data
52.090407296039, 4.3692483376816 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
Self-assured, the girl that Jaroslawa Dankowa made for Mariahoeve Station is scanning the surroundings. She sits on her suitcase. She sits on her suitcase, wide-legged and with a straight back. Her elongated upper body is turned a quarter of a turn in relation to her lower body. Is she looking for someone? Or is she staring at a station clock or an approaching train? Despite the distortion of the body, the sculptor has portrayed her in such a lively and lifelike way that her pose raises questions about what is on her mind.
The special combination of physical distortion and lifelike quality is Dankowa's trademark. Everyone immediately sees that the body proportions are wrong, but at the same time, the expressiveness of the sculpture is enhanced in such a way that the sculpted human figures gain lifelike quality.
Dankowa enjoys some fame in the Netherlands. When the communists seized power in 1948, she fled from Sofia to the Netherlands. Her sister Stiffany noticed that Jaroslawa possessed special artistic gifts and encouraged her to choose the sculpting profession. Although she attended evening classes at The Hague Free Academy for five years, she continued to consider herself self-taught. Her extensive oeuvre proves that she was a professional woman.
The Indisch Monument in The Hague is Dankowa's best known monumental work. The sculpture group is generally considered to be one of the best-known war monuments in the Netherlands. The situation of the victims of the Japanese occupation is very different from that of the waiting girl sitting on her suitcase. Yet in both cases, the imagery is characteristic of Dankowa's style and working method. The figures have not been depicted in detail. The body shapes are stylised and usually elongated. The postures are characteristic of the situation in which the human figures find themselves. Through the human body, Dankowa has managed to depict a broad spectrum of emotions and states of mind.