Chilling paintings of the genius of surrealism and dystopia, filled with fears and tragedies: Zdzislaw Beksiński

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

An award-winning surrealist artist, a creative photographer and a person who has gone through a lot of grief - all these descriptions apply to Zdzislaw (Zdzislaw) Beksiński, who throughout his life struggled with difficulties and tirelessly painted pictures saturated with emotional experiences, tragedies, fears and the echoes of war. Despite all this, his work, overshadowed by longing, sadness and pain, found recognition throughout the world, going down in history as a dystopian art.

Zdzislaw was born in the Polish town of Sanok in 1929 and raised in a war-torn country occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. At the start of World War II, Sanok's population was about thirty percent Jews, almost all of whom had been eliminated by the end of the war. Even non-Jewish Poles were persecuted by the Germans, and this was only exacerbated by the growing Soviet presence. About six million Poles died as a result of the German occupation, and another one hundred and fifty thousand people died as a result of the Soviet occupation.

In fact, little is known about the artist's childhood, but it is reasonable to assume that life in Poland at such a time was cruel for anyone, let alone a child. In his youth, Zdzislav studied architecture at the Krakow University of Technology and completed his education in 1952. After that, he worked as a construction site manager and bus designer, hating the job with all his heart. He began his art studies in the mid-1950s, became interested in photography and sculpture, and eventually became a surrealist painter. Although he had no formal art education, he successfully sold his work even in the early days of his career, selling his paintings, making a lasting impression on local critics.

His work can be described as abstract and surreal. They have always been quite unsettling, depicting grim scenes of death, decay, distorted faces and deformed bodies. While his entire work was rather obscure, his initial work focused on dystopian apocalyptic landscapes and used expressionist color, while his later works were more abstract, formalistic, and used a muted color palette.

His early photographs can be seen as a clear influence on his later paintings, both containing fragmented and distorted figures. The photographs provide a kind of clue to the images that the surrealist artist has turned to over and over again.

Despite all the gloom of the paintings, the artist often stated that his works were not initially dark, arguing that his paintings did not have any special meaning, and advised viewers to interpret them as they would like. Many art critics and historians have come to the conclusion that the chilling themes of Zdzislav's work are related to his childhood during one of the worst wars in human history, but the artist never openly confirmed rumors and left most of the symbolic meaning of his work in the air.

Despite Zdzislaw's denial of the intentional meaning behind his work, there are some seemingly deliberate hints of figurative meaning, especially in the context of his past. For example, one of his paintings depicts a faceless figure made of an interlocking material similar to wood and wearing a military helmet very reminiscent of the Nazi.

In addition, the painting stands out using the Prussian blue color, named after the chemical used to create the pigment, hydrocyanic acid, also known as hydrogen cyanide. This hydrocyanic acid was used during World War II to create a poison known as Zyklon B, which was used in gas chambers in many concentration camps, painting the walls in the familiar Prussian blue.

It is possible that Zdzislav did not know about the terrible story behind the Prussian blue, it is quite obvious that it was incredibly difficult for him to survive the realities of the war. He was only sixteen years old when the war finally ended, and even after that, his country remained under communist control for decades. Poland gained independence from the USSR in 1989, a few months after the artist's sixtieth birthday.

Supporting the idea that there is an intentional meaning behind his art, the painting depicting the grim figure of the reaper peeking out of an empty cradle, on the wall in the background can be seen the phrase in Latin “In hoc signo vinces”, which translates as “With this sign you will win.

The book, published in 1960 with the same Latin title, was written by George Lincoln Rockwell (George Lincoln Rockwell), founder of the American Nazi Party.

The book was similar to the American Mein Kampf, and Rockwell shamelessly believed in and disseminated neo-Nazism and the ideology of white supremacy. Just a few years after In Hoc Signo Vinces was written, he published yet another neo-Nazi manifesto, a racist book filled with anti-Semitism, which was appropriately titled White Power, which made the politician's extremist beliefs completely clear.

The biography, written about Rockwell by Frederick Simonelli in 1999, was called The American Fuhrer, in which the author directly hinted at comparing George to Adolf Hitler. Knowing the history of the Latin phrase and the person who popularized it, the inclusion of this inscription in Zdzislav's painting contradicts his claims and seems to almost indisputably prove the deliberate and calculated symbolic meaning of his work.

Technically speaking, using advanced oil painting techniques, his art was incredibly detailed and accurate. Emotionally, his art is much more impressive than meets the eye. No matter which artist painting you look at, it is bound to be surprisingly original and uniquely intimidating. Discussing his goals, Zdzislav noted that he "wants to paint as if he were photographing dreams."

He drew inspiration from both classical music and rock, often listening to it while drawing. Like his works, Zdzislav himself remained a mystery to the public for most of his life. In the late 1970s, he burned several of his paintings in his backyard, forever “burying” what he called “too personal”. Unfortunately, the theme of these paintings is unknown, since Zdzislav took this secret to his grave.

In the 1980s, he achieved great success around the world. His work sold more and more, especially in Japan, France and the United States. During this period, his work was simplified. By choosing to use a limited and muted color palette and further differentiating the style of the paintings from other popular ones at the time, he made a splash.

During this period, Zdzislav also created a series of paintings that included a series of crosses, although it is unclear if this motif is a religious reference or not. It is highly unlikely that the crosses were evidence of Christian beliefs, and many art historians believe they may have been a reference to the crucifixion and religious persecution he saw growing up in Poland. In the 1990s, the artist began using computers and the Internet for artistic purposes, experimenting with digital art, manipulating photographs, which he often published on the Internet.

From what is known about the personal life of the surrealist artist, it was quite traditional and mundane. He married Zofia Helena Stankevich in 1951 and they remained married for the rest of her life. In 1958, the couple gave birth to their first and only child, Tomáš Sylvester Beksinski, who later became a radio host, film translator and music journalist. While friends and family members said that Zdzislav was a friendly, pleasant and seemingly cheerful person, his personal life was riddled with tragedy.

He was known to suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He did not like leaving Poland and refused to attend exhibitions of his own art, stating that it was "a lot of stress" for him. In 1998, Zdzislav's wife died of cancer. A year later, the artist's son committed suicide on Christmas Eve.

Heartbroken, the artist continued to create new works of art until his untimely death in February 2005. He was found dead in his Warsaw home with seventeen stab wounds inflicted by Robert, the teenage son of his guardian. The young man was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison in November 2006 (at that time he was only twenty years old).

Zdzislav's works have left an impressive mark on the history of surreal art. After his death, Burning Man erected a cross in his memory, and in 2006 a museum dedicated to him and his work opened in his hometown of Sanok, Poland. His collections are also presented at the National Museum in Wroclaw and the National Museum in Warsaw. In addition, he was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta (translated as "Order of the Renaissance of Poland"), a Polish award recognizing outstanding achievements in the arts, science, sports, culture, education, economics, and many other fields and disciplines.

Throughout his life and after his death, young creative people continued to be inspired by his work: music, paintings and even an online game called "Tormentum" were created, which was developed in 2015, paying tribute to his art.

Continuing the topic of the most extraordinary creativity, read also the article about why the works of the Japanese surrealist artist are compared with masterpieces of the great and unique Bosch.