Horrifying paintings of a Polish artist killed by crazed teenagers
One of the most popular Polish artists of the 20th century, Zdzislaw Beksinski, almost never gave titles to his works. This is also why his post-apocalyptic paintings are perceived as a kind of holistic world. A world of horror, despair or whatever else you see in these paintings. The dark corridors of life attract the audience's attention, which is why Beksinski was favored by popularity throughout his entire creative life, mainly in Western Europe, Japan and the USA. However, this did not save him from death at the hands of crazy teenagers.
Beksinski tried himself in many genres: sculpture, photography, graphic art, and turned to painting in the 1960s. The first paintings were painted in the spirit of abstractionism, later surrealistic motifs began to dominate. The author himself believed that he must achieve such a level of skill that the viewer would be convinced that he was photographing dreams. This explains the maximum detail, the saturation of the picture with semantic elements. By the way, the Pole did not have any artistic education.
The most famous period in his work, the so-called “fantastic” period, continued until the mid-1980s. Phantasmagoric works of this time were dominated by infernal landscapes, nightmarish figures and sinister supernatural architecture. At the same time, the artist argued that most of his works are funny and should not cause internal rejection.
Beksinsky painted all of his canvases exclusively to the sounds of classical music (since he could not stand silence) on canvases he prepared with his own hands. In the 90s, he became acquainted with digital technologies and focused his attention on this area.
Beksinski lived with his wife Zofia and son Tomasz in Warsaw. In the last years of the 20th century, a series of misfortunes overtook him. His wife died of cancer, and a year later Tomas, an acclaimed translator, popular music journalist and gothic rock fan, committed suicide. He was a big fan of The Legendary Pink Dots, and after he committed suicide, all the covers of the Polish editions of the band's albums were digitally designed by Beksiński in memory of Tomasz.
On February 22, 2005, Beksinski, at the age of 75, was found dead at the door of his own apartment. There were 17 stab wounds on his body. This atrocity was committed by the 19-year-old son of the artist’s housekeeper and his friend, after Zdzislaw refused to lend them money.