The synchronicity of the process of image perception, noticed by Lessing, is therefore not the only feature that determines the autonomy of visual arts and - although ekphrasis and hypotyposis do not cease to be rhetorical figures liked by poets, responsible for the effect of show­ing the events, things and phenomena described by writers - it is dif­ficult to question the fact that the image is an independent entity that cannot be verbalized completely. Its interpretation may be supported by an author's or curator's text, but words will never completely exhaust the depicted content, nor will they fully reflect the sensual impressions that are activated as a result of communing with the material fabric of art. These features of the image make it itself an inalienable element of visual culture. It is used both by representatives of exact sciences who, with the help of various types of schemes and drawings, try to explain phenomena that are too difficult to explain verbally. Poets use the im­age as support, publishing volumes with illustrations suggesting moods and increasing the emotional charge of their works. But, above all, the image can exist in a complete independence from other disciplines, as a stand-alone form of artistic expression, appealing to aesthetic feelings and provoking reflection on the syntactic and semantic layer of a work of art. Krzysztof Tomalski, the graphic designer from Krakow, uses the image in this context. His large-format compositions (often made with his own concave printing techniques) presents his reflections on man in the Universe defined in an aporetically delineated place where cosmog­ony and theology meet.

In the centuries-old history of graphics, the greatest masters of this discipline tried to create visual equivalents for the moment of creation of the world, the formation of planets and stars, the separation of light from darkness or the appearance of life on Earth. The description con­tained in the biblical Book of Genesis was the point of reference in the European tradition for several hundred years. Taking up this topic in the 21st century, Krzysztof Tomalski treats the description contained in the Holy Scripture only as a metaphor the task of which was once to explain the beginning of the Universe to humanity deprived of access to knowledge obtained using the tools of the digitization era common­ly used today. The biblical text, which is crucial for the Judeo-Christian theology, sometimes actually appears in the Tomalski's graphics, acting as a background — attractive in formal terms thanks to densely adjacent, small and not entirely legible letters. The function of figures in this cycle is performed by ellipsoidal spheres drawn with extraordinary care and by phantasms built with light and shadow, resembling waves propagat­ing concentrically in liquid matter, stimulated to diffusion by the point interaction of strong energy. These cosmological compositions subtly suggest an imaginative dialogue between Tomalski and the luminaries of contemporary scientific theories: Roger Penrose (to whom one of the graphics is dedicated) and Krzysztof Meissner. These scientists are now working together on the concept of endless cycles of successive universes, represented as eons that occur as a result of a powerful explosion and ex­pand over billions of years until they are absorbed by the singularities of black holes. While earlier astrophysicists sought to reconstruct the uni­verse's past, Penrose and Meissner belong to a generation of researchers focused on predicting its future.

Investigations into the predestination of galaxies are inextricably linked to predicting the fate of humanity in its natural habitat. As an artist devoting his time to contemplating the meanings of existence, Tomalski asks in his graphics a question about the anthropic princi­ple on many levels of interpretation. This thread appears in his cosmo­logical paintings, among others, when they present certain allusions to the evolution of species, suggesting consideration of the problem of the emergence of biological life in the Cosmos. Many of the Krakow art­ist's works take up topics directly commenting on the condition of hu­manity in the conditions of questioning traditional value systems based on ethical categories developed within religion. The refutation by sci­ence of religious exegesis, which until recently was accepted without reservations, has given rise to the need to verify many metaphysical concepts. Unfortunately, this process has left a negative mark on the re­lations between humanity and its environment, maintained for centu­ries, regulating coexistence of species in the ethical dimension. Old ties have been severed, leaving behind an unfilled void. The compositions from the Antigravity series can be interpreted in this context: the hu­man figures drift sunk in a world devoid of horizon, limply integrating with the formless matter absorbing their bodies. In the Epidermis series, individual figures move in a homogeneous space, basically without es­tablishing mutual links, although in some of the depictions they seem to try to get out from the geometrically outlined "capsule" limiting their movements, which may evoke associations with a lump of ice or a sarcophagus. Tomalski's man, immersed in a uniform magma, devoid of gravitational ground, gradually transforms into bodiless clothing or even into a negative of the body from which muscles, skin and bones have evaporated.

The titles of the individual graphics do not impose unambiguous in­terpretations and allow for multiple readings of the presented motifs. The audience are somehow invited to unlimited perception, can feel encouraged to superimpose their own experiences and subjective sensations on the images. However, if they had been able to have a conver­sation with Tomalski, they would probably have known an important circumstance accompanying the creation of his graphic stories. When he painted them, the artist experienced a period of fascination with the poetic work of Tadeusz Różewicz. Of particular importance to him was the poem written by this Polish bard in 1963, published in 1968 in The Third Face volume, entitled Falling or about vertical and horizontal ele­ments in the life of contemporary man. Tomalski's graphics are undoubt­edly autothelic works of art but their interpretation becomes expand­ed with additional meanings when they are confronted with the verses composed by Różewicz in the previous century:

In the past,

a very long time ago,

there was a solid bottom

to which a man could slide

(…)

but there is no bottom left,

and no one can slide

to the bottom

or lie on it

(…)

in the modern world,

the bottom has been removed

(…)

sinners and penitents,

holy martyrs of literature,

my lambs,

you are like unweaned children

who will enter the Kingdom

(pity it is not there)

(...)

Ah, my dear, for a man who is alone,

without a god and without a master, the burden of days is terrible

(…)

sometimes I have an impression

that the bottom of my contemporaries

lies shallow, just below the surface

of life,

but this is probably another illusion

perhaps there is a need in "our time"

to build

a new bottom

adapted

to our needs

(…)

Irma Kozina