Been a while since my last update. I’ve been busy finishing some overdue projects and pieces I had promised. Today’s post is a real treat, however: the weird sci-fi retro-future of the Polish artist Jakub Rozalski (alias Mr. Werewolf).
Rozalski is a bit of an odd duck, from what I can tell. A couple popular websites have featured his work recently, but none of them capture their true essence. Dangerous Minds ought to be commended, along with Hi-Fructose, for recognizing the obvious talent of Mr. Werewolf and publicizing it far and wide. But Martin Schneider’s write-up was disappointingly sub-par, in my opinion, well below DM’s usually high standards. So I thought I’d try my hand at it.
The digitally-constructed, high-resolution paintings that appear below are taken from Rozalski’s 1920+ series and his samizdat art book, World of Scythe. Others have noted the playful anachronisms that abound in these works, set somewhere in interwar Osteuropa across the forest-steppe. Sentinels scour the idyllic countryside — often in outline, as hazy silhouettes — menacing local muzhiks as they pass. Yet their presence seems strangely accepted by the inhabitants of this world, partisan and peasant alike. It’s almost as if they’ve become so inured to the horrors of war that the sight of these towering robots leaves them completely unfazed.
Wells’ War of the Worlds is clearly an influence here, with “mechs” adapted to the style of WWI landships and heavily-armored cars. Another article suggested Star Wars’ Battle of Hoth sequence, which came a little later. They’re not entirely off-mark. Rozalski also draws upon the iconic imagery of Terminator (1985) in his latest series commemorating Polish independence, the Warsaw uprising, and the Nazi invasion of 1939. Cyclopean cyborgs with burning red eyes don German helmets, tattered Wehrmacht uniforms hanging off their steely limbs.
Apart from all this, elements of fantasy enter into Rozalski’s steampunk obshchina as well. Grizzly bears are used as pack animals, and peasants smoke long, thin pipes that could be lifted straight from Tolkien, out of the world of Middle Earth. There is something about these paintings that strikes a chord with me, and apparently others. No one would mistake these paintings by Rozalski for great art, as if such a thing were possible in this day and age. But they do bring together Babel’s Red Cavalry and Final Fantasy VI, a winning formula if ever there was.
