Struggle
Sculpture by Stanisław Szukalski as featured in his eponymous Netflix documentary, Struggle. Created in 1917, this piece depicts “the Struggle between quality and quantity as the four fingers attack the thumb, the opposing fingers turning against one another failing to recognize they are but one”, according to Szukalski. Struggle can be interpreted as representing the infighting of the great powers of Europe during the First World War which was raging at the time. The hand represents the greater European civilization, while the individual fingers represent its constituent nations locked in a struggle against one another, blind to their inseparable kinship. This piece is one of the original 9/9 edition of Szukalski’s original sculpture casted at the Decker Foundry.
Stanisław Szukalski was a renowned sculptor and nationalist ideologue from Poland noted for his mythological and political works of art, particularly concerning Poland’s ancient Slavic past. He was renowned for the lifelike accuracy of the anatomical details seen in his works, a skill he had allegedly attained by dissecting his father’s body at the morgue. He was also deeply inspired by Mesoamerican cultural symbols, which he incorporated into visual tales of Slavic and other national mythologies. Noted for his overall eccentricity, Szukalski was described as having “the nose of a South American ant-eater and walks like an escaped Frankenstein”.
“People in Poland associate Szukalski with the homeland, purity, the metapagan (the pagan’s pagan) and treat him as this sort of prophet” claims writer Jacek Staniszewski. Meanwhile artist Marek Hapon said of Szukalski that “He was a man who was creating art that was inspired by another dimension. It is the dimension that is occupied by gods. His work is absolutely temple art…[he was] kind of an artist-priest.”
Upon the Polish declaration of independence in 1918, Szukalski realized that Poland needed to create a national art that would speak to its own soul, or nature. Being anti-clerical, anti-communistic and anti-semitic, Szukalski founded a politico-artistic movement known as the Tribe of the Horned Heart, centered around Polish artists who sought inspiration from the pre-Christian, pagan history of Poland, just as his works often did. They believed that an artist had to also be a propagandist. As part of his political program that sought to supplant Catholicism with Slavic paganism for example, Szukalski suggested replacing churches with so-called Duchtynia, a place of worship of ancient heroes and gods from Slavic mythology. A parallel can be drawn between the beliefs of Poland’s young nationalists and the esoteric doctrine of the Schutzstaffel (SS), both of whom rejected Christianity and sought to construct a new, authentic national myth modeled around their indigenous, pre-Christian pagan traditions.
Szukalski was officially endorsed by the nationalist government of Poland at the time who viewed the dramatic mythological imagery of his works as an invaluable asset in constructing a new national mythos for Poland. Most of his works were destroyed during the German blitz of 1939 and the ensuing occupation.
From 1940, Szukalski devoted his later years to unravel the mysteries of human prehistory. He did this by analyzing the formation and shaping of languages, faiths, customs, and arts across the many civilizations through deciphering the mythological origins of geographical names, gods, and symbols that have survived in varying cultural forms. He termed his theory ‘Zermatism’, which claimed all human culture derived from post-deluge Easter Islanders who settled in Zermatt, and that in all human languages one could find traces of the original, ancient mother-tongue of mankind. He claimed humanity was locked in an eternal struggle with the Sons of Yeti (Yetinsyny), the halfbreed offspring of Yeti and humans, who had supposedly enslaved humanity for time immemorial. Szukalski used his considerable artistic talents to illustrate his eccentric theories, which, despite their lack of scientific merit, have gained a cult following largely by merit of their aesthetic value.
The ideological congruence and aesthetic quality of his works and their potential propaganda value did not go unnoticed by the Nazis. Being a fascist himself, Szukalski was a great admirer of Benito Mussolini and sculpted the awe-inspiring Remussolini (1932) in the Duce’s honor. However, being a Polish nationalist, these sentiments did not extend to Hitler and the Germans. An anecdote exists wherein Szukalski was commissioned by a Nazi official to produce a sculpture of Hitler. In response, Szukalski is said to have sent this official a derisive illustration of Hitler in a tutu.
“You need to say something. Concept make you a great artist. Always remember that you have something to tell. And you’ll make a masterpiece.” — Stanisław Szukalski (Struggle)
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Sculpture by Stanisław Szukalski as featured in his eponymous Netflix documentary, Struggle. Created in 1917, this piece depicts “the Struggle between quality and quantity as the four fingers attack the thumb, the opposing fingers turning against one another failing to recognize they are but one”, according to Szukalski. Struggle can be interpreted as representing the infighting of the great powers of Europe during the First World War which was raging at the time. The hand represents the greater European civilization, while the individual fingers represent its constituent nations locked in a struggle against one another, blind to their inseparable kinship. This piece is one of the original 9/9 edition of Szukalski’s original sculpture casted at the Decker Foundry.
Stanisław Szukalski was a renowned sculptor and nationalist ideologue from Poland noted for his mythological and political works of art, particularly concerning Poland’s ancient Slavic past. He was renowned for the lifelike accuracy of the anatomical details seen in his works, a skill he had allegedly attained by dissecting his father’s body at the morgue. He was also deeply inspired by Mesoamerican cultural symbols, which he incorporated into visual tales of Slavic and other national mythologies. Noted for his overall eccentricity, Szukalski was described as having “the nose of a South American ant-eater and walks like an escaped Frankenstein”.
“People in Poland associate Szukalski with the homeland, purity, the metapagan (the pagan’s pagan) and treat him as this sort of prophet” claims writer Jacek Staniszewski. Meanwhile artist Marek Hapon said of Szukalski that “He was a man who was creating art that was inspired by another dimension. It is the dimension that is occupied by gods. His work is absolutely temple art…[he was] kind of an artist-priest.”
Upon the Polish declaration of independence in 1918, Szukalski realized that Poland needed to create a national art that would speak to its own soul, or nature. Being anti-clerical, anti-communistic and anti-semitic, Szukalski founded a politico-artistic movement known as the Tribe of the Horned Heart, centered around Polish artists who sought inspiration from the pre-Christian, pagan history of Poland, just as his works often did. They believed that an artist had to also be a propagandist. As part of his political program that sought to supplant Catholicism with Slavic paganism for example, Szukalski suggested replacing churches with so-called Duchtynia, a place of worship of ancient heroes and gods from Slavic mythology. A parallel can be drawn between the beliefs of Poland’s young nationalists and the esoteric doctrine of the Schutzstaffel (SS), both of whom rejected Christianity and sought to construct a new, authentic national myth modeled around their indigenous, pre-Christian pagan traditions.
Szukalski was officially endorsed by the nationalist government of Poland at the time who viewed the dramatic mythological imagery of his works as an invaluable asset in constructing a new national mythos for Poland. Most of his works were destroyed during the German blitz of 1939 and the ensuing occupation.
From 1940, Szukalski devoted his later years to unravel the mysteries of human prehistory. He did this by analyzing the formation and shaping of languages, faiths, customs, and arts across the many civilizations through deciphering the mythological origins of geographical names, gods, and symbols that have survived in varying cultural forms. He termed his theory ‘Zermatism’, which claimed all human culture derived from post-deluge Easter Islanders who settled in Zermatt, and that in all human languages one could find traces of the original, ancient mother-tongue of mankind. He claimed humanity was locked in an eternal struggle with the Sons of Yeti (Yetinsyny), the halfbreed offspring of Yeti and humans, who had supposedly enslaved humanity for time immemorial. Szukalski used his considerable artistic talents to illustrate his eccentric theories, which, despite their lack of scientific merit, have gained a cult following largely by merit of their aesthetic value.
The ideological congruence and aesthetic quality of his works and their potential propaganda value did not go unnoticed by the Nazis. Being a fascist himself, Szukalski was a great admirer of Benito Mussolini and sculpted the awe-inspiring Remussolini (1932) in the Duce’s honor. However, being a Polish nationalist, these sentiments did not extend to Hitler and the Germans. An anecdote exists wherein Szukalski was commissioned by a Nazi official to produce a sculpture of Hitler. In response, Szukalski is said to have sent this official a derisive illustration of Hitler in a tutu.
“You need to say something. Concept make you a great artist. Always remember that you have something to tell. And you’ll make a masterpiece.” — Stanisław Szukalski (Struggle)
