Zbigniew Makowski (1930-2019), ANTEA, 1957-1986

gouache/paper, 193 x 42 cm
signed in watercolor pr.g.: Zbigniew Makowski 1957 - 1986
signed, dated and described on the back in pencil: ANTEA - Beyond Names | 1957 - 1986 | gouache 195 x 42 | "ANTEA"
The work is composed of four sheets of paper sewn together with string.

Each work by Zbigniew Makowski - painting, drawing, or book - should be seen as part of a whole. The artist believed that in art the image of the whole is the most important. "The artist must see the whole of the work and the whole of himself," - he said, otherwise he is a painter of "details, commercial fragments, cakes, candies." Thus, an authentic artist is one who is consistent and internally independent, and his output is like a long treatise written throughout his life. The presented composition gives a glimpse of this totality, brings closer the concept and creative method of this poet and philosopher of art, unique in Poland, an alchemist transforming the matter of paper, canvas and paint into unique artifacts. Makowski drew abundantly from the past, from the history of art. In this case, with the title "Antea" he refers to a 16th-century portrait by the brush of Parmigianino - "L'Antea". The face of the woman from the Italian Mannerist painting appears in numerous works by Makowski, more or less similar to the original.