Victims of War 1944

Cyprián Majerník painted ‘Victims of War’ in oil on cardboard, sometime before his death in 1945. It captures the plight of refugees in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. The work shows a group of figures gathered with a horse in a desolate landscape. It’s difficult to make out faces or individual expressions. This lack of specificity emphasizes the universality of suffering caused by war. Majerník was Slovakian, and his personal experiences of the war, and its impact on Eastern European communities, clearly shaped his artistic vision. The painting avoids glorifying war, instead presenting its grim reality: displacement, loss, and uncertainty. Art historians use sources like letters, diaries, and historical records to understand how war and other forms of social crisis impact artists. By studying the social and political context, we can understand how art reflects and comments on the pressing issues of its time.