Sunday, December 15, 2013

The creepy art of Zdzisław Beksiński


Painting by Zdzisław Beksiński
Polish-born painter Zdzisław Beksiński (1929-2005) once said, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams." Despite the fact that he was raised in the rubble of World War II, and suffered personal tragedies, such as the suicide of his son, he was said to be a pleasant and humorous man.


He didn't frequent museums, was too shy to attend his own gallery openings, and didn't take inspiration from movies. He said his inspiration came from classical music, which he always had playing when he worked. 

He didn't put titles on his paintings, because he didn't want them to be misinterpreted. Although most people find his work disturbing, he believed his work was optimistic or even humorous. Unfortunately he was savagely murdered in his old age.
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11 comments:

Kate said...

Oh NO! That's horrible! I was ok-ish until your last sentence. But then, at least his work (and death) was consistent.
I have some art-y colleagues who would be delighted with this work. They do some creepy stuff too. I'll send them over.

greenishthing said...

James, sorry it's an unrelated question: but I've started sketching using only some watercolor pencils ad some pen brushes with ink in them, the way you showed.
Now, right now I'm in the middle of nowhere and all I could find is some Rorher ink and some sennelier.
Now, rorher seems to be ok for use even in fountain pen, so in a brush pen no worries I guess... but there is shellac in the sennelier inks... not for fountain pen of course, but can I use them in brush pens? do I need to dilute them? I dont mind the pen brush being forever THAT color, I do mind the pen brush becoming unsusable.
Any advise or info is most most most welcome
btw both rohrer and snnelier are beautifuk - I tried them by painting with my fingers :-D

cheers and thanks for creating this wonderful blog
Marie

James Gurney said...

Katherine, yes, so sad. Greenishthing, If you don't mind risking ruining your water brush, you can try out the Sennelier ink. I actually haven't tried India ink because I prefer water-soluble anyway, but I've been told they can clog up the water brush.

Jennifer Rose said...

When researching artists for a graded unit project for college, I came across his work last year, very eye catching. shame he isn't alive to produce more

sagafreestyle@gmail.com said...

You can visit http://www.beksinski.pl/ if you like his work, its worth visiting! Greetings,

Aljosa said...

He's been one of my favorite painters for years. Although he disliked analyses of his work, the paintings often remind me of WW2 horrors — not directly; it more of subtle feeling.

Unknown said...

One of those troubled, but brilliant minds

JCW said...

You might want to remove the hyphen from between Zdzisław's first and last name. It's a bit odd. :)

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing. He did some very impressive work.

Unknown said...

One thing that alwats blows my mind is how intense some if his colors can be, even in negative space. Got any tips for how to better understand this ability? Is it just because background elements begin to borrow from the background color more and more as they go back in space??

James Gurney said...

Unknown, I hadn't thought of the color that way before, but it totally makes sense that elements would take on more of the color as they go back in space.