The exhibition “The January Uprising. Road to Independence” organised to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the outbreak of the January Uprising, presents drawings, watercolours and prints by artists – both witnesses of the events and representatives of the next generation whose families were affected by the tragedy of deportation to Siberia, as well as installations by two contemporary artists.Exhibition at the Kordegarda, The National Centre for Culture Gallery shows the dramatric fates of an insurgent, a prisoner, an exila… The testimony of artists, participants in the uprising, as well as the voice of contemporary artists, allows the tragedy of the insurgents and their families to be seen in universal terms.The works were acquired from the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, the Museum of Independence and the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Lublin, courtesy of the National Museum in Lublin.These include drawings and prints by Kazimierz Alchimowicz, Elwiro Michał Andriolli, Ludomir Benedyktowicz, Józef Chełmoński, Adam Chmielowski, Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski, Maksymilian Gierymski, Adrian Głębocki, Artur Grottger, Edward Kamieński, Antoni Maksymilian Oborski, Alfred Izydor Römer, Franciszek Streitt and Stanisław Witkiewicz.The presentation is arranged chronologically, reflecting incidents prior to the outbreak of the uprising, episodes from battles and the executions, deportations and repressions that were its consequences. It is framed by a watercolour by the painter and lithographer Adrian Głębocki (from 1861), illustrating the street fights in Warsaw's Castle Square on 8 April 1861, and by works by Maksymilian Oborski created during his exile in Siberia.Głębocki did not witness the events in Castle Square, but they nevertheless made a shocking impression on him. It was one of the most dramatic episodes in the life of pre-uprising Warsaw. On 6 April 1861, the Agricultural Society, which had considerable political influence, was dissolved by a decision of Margrave Wielopolski. This stirred up public opinion. The next day, a crowd began to gather outside the Society’s headquarters. In response, a “riot law” was drafted, providing for the use of weapons. On 8 April, a group of people gathered in Castle Square singing patriotic and religious songs. From a postal stagecoach passing nearby came the melody Poland Is Not Yet Lost. The crowd reached a boiling point, with participants in the demonstration moving towards the castle. Meanwhile, gendarmes and Cossacks in a force of 1,300 men were led into the square. A police representative called for people to disperse, but presumably few people heard him. The Cossacks tried to scatter the crowd with the butts of their guns and whips, but the effect was the opposite. People knelt down, singing devotional songs. The order to shoot was then given. A procession formed under a hail of bullets. A monk carrying the cross was one of the first to die, another victim was Jewish student Michał Lande, who picked up the cross. The pacification took over an hour. The number of victims has never been precisely determined. Official sources mentioned one hundred casualties, unofficial sources doubled this number. Several hundred people were injured.We are showing four drawings by Maksymilian Gierymski in the exhibition – Battle of the Insurgents, created before 1865, a study of a horseman for the Lancers’ procession and the later Shooting Range in the Forest and Skirmish. These works have a special emotional value, characterised by their authenticity due to the author's participation in the uprising. Gierymski drew from his observations, under the influence of fresh memories. The skirmish scenes are dynamic, tense and yet devoid of pathos.“He passed the whole year (1863) and part of the next constantly wandering from forest to forest. Passing nights in the snow, days in the rain, making strenuous marches in hunger …” – wrote Lucjan Siemieński (Z Krakowa, p. 2, quoted in H. Stępień, Malarstwo Maksymiliana Gierymskiego, PAN 1979)Gierymski's participation in the uprising resultet in tuberculosis, which developed during his stay in Munich and ultimately ended in his premature passing at the age of just 28.The author of the subsequent three works presented in the exhibition, Scene with a Sleigh, Village on a Hill and At the Post, is Gierymski's friend Adam Chmielowski, later Saint Albert Chmielowski.Chmielowski set off for the uprising together with Gierymski from a school, the Polytechnic Institute in Puławy. After the victorious battle of Grochowiska, he made his way to Galicia, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. He managed to escape and rejoin the insurgent struggle. Severely wounded in the losing battle of Mełchów, Chmielowski had to have his leg amputated.  Thanks to the efforts of his family, he managed to escape to Paris and avoid repression. In 1870, he began to study painting in Munich.  Scene with a Sleigh and At the Post come from this period.The exhibition also includes two works documenting the Battle of Żyrzyn (8 August 1863). The first is a woodcut based on a drawing by Ange-Louis Janet, from a sketch by Lieutenant Maksymilian Jaxa, which appeared in the weekly magazine “Illustration. Journal Universel” in November 1863. The other is a watercolour by Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski, showing a similar compositional arrangement, possibly created from a sketch or woodcut.The ambush at Żyrzyn was a spectacular success, which resulted in an almost total loss of ammunition. Two money and postal wagons, escorted by a convoy of five hundred men, were recaptured. This victory proved to the insurgents that it was possible to defeat the enemy in the open field and directed international attention to the ongoing struggle in the Russian partition.Particularly noteworthy are the drawings of another participant in the uprising, Alfred Izydor Roemer, painter, sculptor, art historian and ethnographer. One depicts a prison cell in the Dyneburg fortress. Others, revealing his talent for caricature, include an insurgent tent with Ignacy Kurkowski, Ludwik Mieroslawski and Topór, portraits of insurgent commanders and likenesses of captured Russian officers.One of the most interesting artists, with the largest number of seven drawings presented in the exhibition, is Ludomir Benedyktowicz. The artist joined the uprising with students from the Department of Forest Practices in Feliksów near Brok. He found himself in the rifle squad because he knew the terrain very well and could handle a gun. He lost both hands during the fighting. The right was cut off by a Cossack, while the left was torn apart by a shrapnel and had to be amputated. To avoid repression, rumours were spread that the artist had died and his funeral was faked.  Benedyktowicz went into hiding for ten years. In 1868, he started his studies at the Munich Academy. He created with the aid of a makeshift prosthesis – an iron hoop worn on his wrist with brushes, pen or pencil attached. On his return to Poland in 1873, he was exposed and imprisoned for eight months on charges of agitation. The exhibition features his drawing Girl with a Jug, from the collection of the Museum of Independence, created during his incarceration in the citadel. Other works include landscapes and sketches of trees. What is striking is the detail of Benedyktowicz's work, drawn as if in defiance of his constraints.The works by Maksymilian Oborski, mentioned at the beginning, created during his exile in Siberia, and a drawing from an execution, by Stanislaw Witkiewicz form an emotional group.The exhibition closes, so to speak, with a contemporary installation by Teresa Murak The Cloths of the Sisters of the Visitation, created from old, worn-out cloths that the artist found in Warsaw's Visitationist Church. The nuns used them to clean the church floors. Made from linen grown in the monastery garden, they were surprisingly durable. The cloths are a reference to the Christian symbolism of the shroud and the Veil of St. Veronica, expanded to include a context of concern for life in its essence.We also present Mateusz Rembielinski's installation Scythes. This work, which carries a huge emotional charge, was created in 2014 during an open-air workshop in Orońsko.The exhibition is a form of tribute to the participants in the uprising, their families and loved ones who paid for the fight for independence with their lives, exile and loss of property.Katarzyna Haber, curator of the exhibition