73.0 x 73.0cm - oil, fiberboard signed on back: BEKSIŃSKI | 1981
p.g. export stamp with signature
Provenance:
- The painting was purchased in 1990. Paris to the Museum of European Art in Osaka, Japan.
- After the museum closed, private collection in Asia.
Image exhibited, reproduced and described:
- Beksinski. Paris-Osaka-Warsaw, Agra-Art Gallery, Warsaw 1 July - 4 September 2021, cat. no. 10, p. nlb. color ill.;
- Japanese Collection. Beksinski and others, Agra-Art, Warsaw 2021, p. 31, color ill.;
- Dmochowski Gallery NET (Virtual Museum) website.
The post-apocalyptic view of the "city of the dead" created at the beginning of the 1980s belongs to the so-called "fantastic period" (1968-1984), widely regarded as the most controversial and recognizable in the artist's rich oeuvre. Wieslaw Banach, long-time director of the Historical Museum in Sanok and a friend of the painter, characterized it this way: This is a period dominated by landscapes, often called metaphysical by the artist. It was in them that the artist's ability to create space along the lines of traditional art and embed figures, objects and architecture was formulated. The main director of these representations was light, and the tool was the increasingly delicate chiaroscuro. It was this period, which lasted only a dozen years, that brought the artist fame and provoked extremely opposing reactions from critics [...] What most imposed itself on the viewer was related to the literal perception of these objects and figures. He was accused of cruelty, a total scarification of the world, as one critic wrote, or necrophilia, as others said (quoted by W. Banach, Fantastic Period [in:] Zdzislaw Beksinski. 1929-2005, BOSZ 2021, pp. 166, 170).
Zdzislaw Beksinski, in spite of the voices of public outrage, consistently pursued his program of "photographing dreams and dreams." He created worlds on the borderline of reality and fantasy, which, he argued, were a projection of his own experiences and emotions, rather than a desire for horror. The artist's accompanying fear of death and passing found its painterly equivalent in numerous depictions of abandoned Gothic cathedrals, tombstones, crypts, stelae or portals leading to the dark beyond. The landscape presented in this catalog contains similarly disturbing, sepulchral architectural elements. The foreground vision of cobweb-covered, open graves, dug along a wall of cracked texture, takes over the horror. Behind the fenced graveyard looms - like a bunker - the austere mass of a windowless, tall building. The monochromatic ochre color scheme, spanning from tarnished yellows to intense russet, enhances the impression of a post-cataclysmic landscape, in which a catastrophic glow seems to be the source of light. Plunged in its bloody glare, the ghostly conflagration, though ominous and gloomy, captivates with its majestic, "metaphysical" beauty, in the face of which no lover of "Cry-Baby" art will pass indifferently.
* border VAT 8% will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs (in accordance with §12 para. 2 of the Rules)
♣ to the auctioned price in addition to other costs will be added a fee resulting from the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on copyright and related rights (droit de suite)
Recently viewed
Please log in to see lots list
Favourites
Please log in to see lots list