Artur
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- Artur
- 1987
- pencil on paper
- 85,5 × 60,7 cm
The drawings by Krzysztof Jung feature some of his most frequent motifs. His practices of both painting and drawing were usually devoted to studies of nature, with lone trees featuring prominently in the former. These trees are filled with symbolic meaning drawn from Christianity, also being anthropomorphized and occupying a position similar to that of his naked male subjects. Matzevah tombstones were likewise among the artist’s motifs; these abandoned memorials signify the remembrance of a culture that was wiped out as part of the Shoah. Another tombstone is shown on a lawn near a black building: the title of this work—“D.O.M. Domus Omnium Mortuorum,” meaning “the house of all the dead”—once again stresses these objects’ memorial character. Jung’s drawings were created during his stays at a house near Warsaw known as Jungówka. Holiday and weekend gatherings of friends there served as retreats from the capital’s everyday life but were also used to explore the pastoral nature of the rural landscape and the constant shadow of death. D.M.