Shadow of a Soldier’s Life by Esther de Wit

About "Shadow of a Soldier’s Life"

by Esther de Wit

About the artwork

An abandoned barracks, where the passage of time has unmistakably left its mark. The room breathes faded grandeur. Once, this may have been a place of discipline and order, now it stands as a silent witness to decay and abandonment.

The walls are heavily deteriorated: plaster peels off in large flakes, revealing a layer of weathered brick underneath. The once warm-red color of the walls has faded and chipped away, like the pale memory of a distant past. Tattered remnants of curtains hang lifeless by the window, half detached, like defeated flags after a long-forgotten battle.

A large window lets sunlight pour in generously, casting long shadows across the wooden floor. The cracked floorboards are strewn with debris and dust, remnants of a ceiling and walls that slowly gave way to time’s relentless pressure.

The tall paneled doors, partially ajar, reveal a view into an adjoining room that seems to share the same fate. The doors themselves are yellowed and warped, their paint flaking away in quiet surrender. And yet, they still hold a certain stateliness, a reminder of a time when these barracks were cared for and respected.

What was once a place of structure and authority is now a monument to silence and decay. Yet it is precisely this transience that gives the room its melancholic beauty. The sunlight streaming in seems to illuminate the past one last time — as if it refuses to be forgotten.