Untitled 

This untitled drawing was made by the Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski, probably sometime in the late 20th century. At first glance, it seems to depict a deformed figure in military dress holding a baby, or perhaps a doll. Behind them stands a crowd of gaunt figures, their faces bearing an uncanny resemblance to the figure in the foreground. Beksinski's Poland was caught between the horrors of Nazi occupation, and Soviet authoritarianism. His work has been read as a reaction to these political conditions, its imagery of decay being a comment on the suffering of the Polish people at this time. But it is also hard not to see the drawing as influenced by a longer tradition of Polish Romanticism, with its themes of death, irrationality and national destiny. A deeper understanding of this artwork would require access to the right resources. These would include a biography of the artist, an account of Polish art during the Soviet era, and a survey of the art institutions that supported and displayed Beksinski's work.