Frederic Chopin Monument in Warsaw

The Chopin Monument in Warsaw's Lazienki Park shows the composer Frederic Chopin seated beneath a wind-bent Mazovian willow, an image of the Polish landscape that shaped his music. The larger-than-life bronze was designed in 1907 by sculptor Waclaw Szymanowski in a late Art Nouveau idiom and finally unveiled in 1926 after years of debate over its placement. German occupiers blew it up in 1940 as a deliberate strike against Polish national identity; it was recast from the original model and re-erected in 1958. Since May 1959, free open-air Chopin recitals have taken place here every summer Sunday, midday and afternoon, with pianists from around the world. The monument is therefore less a quiet statue than a busy meeting point in the park.