A Love Story

Love, love changes everything,
Brings you glory, brings you shame.
Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

So go the lyrics to Love Changes Everything from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Aspects of Love. Having seen Andrew Lloyd Webber I can easily imagine the prospect of actually finding love while looking like that would be such a profound experience, but for most of us it is rather a more sober affair (although it may also be a drunken affair if one is more comfortable relating to people when in that state). Oh yes, there is passion and pain, but to sing about such things from the rooftops is the sort of thing that only happens in musicals right?

Well, no, as it happens. Meet Tomasz Urynowicz, a thirty seven year old from Nowa Huta district in Krakow, Poland. Tomasz is a bit of an art lover and when he was twenty-six acquired the painting on the right hand side of this article. Despite the fact that I personally find the girl in the painting to be very plain, Tomasz was fascinated by her and found her to be an exquisite beauty. He found himself wondering how the subject of the painting (which was forty-five years old at that time) had lived her life and who she had become. Over time his obsession grew and he started searching for the woman in the painting to satisfy his curiosity.

Ten years he searched for clues to the identity of the “absolute beauty with the shimmering hair”, with nothing but the painting to go by. Over that time his feelings deepened until he had truly fallen for this complete stranger. He searched high and low for anyone who may have known the artist or the model never once gaining anything tangible. It seemed to Tomasz that the woman of his dreams was forever beyond his grasp. Now, I’d love to be the one telling you that Tomasz found the woman of his dreams. I’d love to tell you that they fell in love despite the difference in ages and that they’re happily married right now, perhaps with their first child on the way. I’d love to tell you that but life has never worked that way in my experience. Life is infinitely crueller than that and sometimes, just sometimes, infinitely more wonderful to behold.

On the verge of despair at not finding the woman he loves so completely, Tomasz came up with one final plan to cement his future happiness. He is currently looking for a priest who will marry him to the painting. Personally I can’t see it going well as marriages have to be consummated before they are legal these days, and that’s going to ruin the brushwork on the painting if it goes ahead, and yet there is something to this story. I honestly hope that Tomasz can find someone who will perform this ceremony and wish Tomasz the best in his upcoming nuptials.