Island of dead

Jacek Malczewski, the author of canonical works of Polish art (“Death of Ellenai”, “Introduction”, “Melancholy”, “Vicious Circle”, “Landscape with Tobias”), countless portraits, presentations of Thánatos and Poisoned Wells, is one of best known Polish artists. His extensive, even though artistically uneven accomplishments continue to intrigue, are investigated and subjected to various analyses and interpretations. The Szczecin painting is an important testimony to the artist’s European inspirations. It was probably inspired by Karol Lanckoroński (lover of the art of Arnold Böcklin), shortly after their joint trip to Asia Minor, and tackles the issue of relations between the works of Jacek Malczewski and the art of Arnold Böcklin. Painted a few years after the original, Jacek Malczewski’s “The Island of the Dead” is a travesty of the famous painting of the Swiss symbolist, known in several versions, today dispersed around the world and located in Basel, New York, Berlin, Lugano and Leipzig. Böcklin’s “The Island of the Dead” has many diverse interpretations and has grown to the rank of the masterpiece of the epoch, emblematic for the European culture, in the course of time becoming almost an object of worship, an icon of popular culture and even a synonym of kitsch. The work of the Polish symbolist provokes the question why ˗ in spite of many attempts of several generations of Polish museum curators ˗ Malczewski was unable to make it to the canon of the European art. The symbolic language of Böcklin’s paintings has acquired a universal dimension, commonly legible, while Malczewski’s works, even though attractive in their iconographic layer, still remain specifically Polish in their expression and are too hermetic for the rest of Europe.

Dariusz Kacprzak