Untitled 

This untitled painting was created by the Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski, though it is undated. Beksinski's nightmarish visions were a product of growing up in Poland during World War II and then living through the oppressive years of Soviet control. The skeletal figure in this image embodies the horrors of that war, and the abject misery of daily life in its aftermath. His paintings can be thought of as embodying the death of utopian ideals. Beksinski refused to interpret his own art, but it seems clear that these are not images of hope or redemption. To gain a deeper appreciation of Beksinski's work, one might research the history of Poland and Eastern Europe during the 20th century, delving into its tragic history of wartime violence and the broken promises of communism. We can understand art as something that is contingent on social and institutional context.