Beksiński's Paintings

A LOOK AT

Throughout his 50-year career, Zdzisław Beksiński‘s paintings went through a variety of styles. Much of his work echoed the horrors of World War II, but his dark aesthetic has become particularly popular in the internet age. Beksiński brought global attention to Polish art and he is arguably the greatest Polish artist to date.

INTO THE ABYSS WITH ZDZISŁAW BEKSIŃSKI

When Beksiński was ten, World War II began and the Nazis invaded Poland. In 1947, he went to study architecture at Kraków Polytechnic, graduating in 1952 with an MSc.

PRODUCT OF WAR

By 1957, Zdzisław Beksiński’s photography began to gain recognition for its surreal depiction of the Polish artist as well as others.

IMPURE PHOTOGRAPHY

From the start of the 1960s until the 1980s, Beksiński produced what has come to be known as his Fantastic series. In 1964, when he exhibited some of these paintings, they were all sold.  It was in the Fantastic period that he made his most famous surreal horror art. His surreal horror art was infused with hopelessness and despair.

BEKSIŃSKI'S FANTASTIC PERIOD

He believed that the longer he took to finish his creepy sketches, the more likely he was to achieve that sense of dystopian surrealism. In his opinion, rough brushstrokes would be disingenuous and unfinished.

AESTHETIC AND TECHNIQUE

All of his creepy sketches remain untitled and he was insistent about denying meaning altogether. He thought that titling his art would create a misconstrued interpretation of the work.

INTERPRETATION

Beksiński’s depiction of thin bodies is evocative of wartimes. His bodies are never normal and almost always blend into something else, obscuring and stretching their original form.

BODIES

Beksiński’s surreal horror art featured other religious structures like crucifixes, churches, cathedrals, and Jewish cemeteries. He was not against religious interpretations of his art

RELIGION

Blue also has significantly dark implications in his scenes. Beksiński used Prussian blue, so named after Prussic acid, a key component of the paint. Another term for Prussic acid is hydrogen cyanide.

WAR AND DEATH

In 2005, Beksiński refused to loan his housekeeper’s 19-year-old son roughly $100. The situation escalated and the teenager stabbed him 17 times, leaving him dead.

GRUESOME ENDING

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