01 Work, The art of War, Jacek Malczewski's Death, with Footnotes

Jacek Malczewski  (1854–1929)

Death, c. 1902

Oil on canvas

height: 75 cm (29.5 in); width: 98 cm (38.5 in)

National Museum in Warsaw

Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper, a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe, causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other beliefs hold that the spectre of death is only a psychopomp, a benevolent figure who serves to gently sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies. Death is most often personified in male form, although in certain cultures death is perceived as female. Death is also portrayed as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Most claims of its appearance occur in states of near-death. more on the personification of death

Jacek Malczewski, a Polish Symbolist painter, was born on this day, 15 July, 1854. He is considered to be one of the most revered painters of Poland and had strong associations with the patriotic Young Poland movement following a century of Partitions of Poland. Regarded as the father of Polish Symbolism, his creative output combined the predominant style of his times with historical motifs of Polish martyrdom, the romantic ideals of independence, Christian and Greek mythology, folk tales, as well as his love of the natural world.

Malczewski moved to Kraków at 17, and began his artistic education in 1872 under several great masters. He also enrolled in an art school and spent a year studying in Paris. He was greatly influenced by Jan Matejko’s style as well as that of the earlier Polish Romantic painter Artur Grottger. Between 1885 and 1916, Jacek regularly made trips to Paris, Munich, Vienna, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

He also drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources often exotic or biblical, and translated them back into Polish folklore, tradition and motifs in his own paintings. Many of his paintings prominently feature grandiose self-portraits that reveal his sense of humor and capacity to laugh at himself.

During the periods of 1897-1900 and 1912-1921, Malczewski served as professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He was elected Rector of the Academy in 1912. His art has been compared to many great contemporaries and his paintings won many awards at international exhibitions. Malczewski died on 8 October 1929. More on Jacek Malczewski

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