Art has always been a mirror of its time, with artists serving as visionaries who often anticipated the future, creating images of what was to come. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the theme of modernity, technology, and the future became one of the key motifs in painting, sculpture, and digital art. Creators like Zdzisław Beksiński, Wojciech Siudmak, and Andrzej Fogtt have portrayed futuristic visions of the world—sometimes filled with hope and harmony, other times dystopian and unsettling.
Beksiński created dark, post-apocalyptic landscapes where technology and biology merged into surreal, organic forms. His paintings, though set in a fantastical reality, often reflected contemporary human fears about the future. On the other hand, Siudmak, inspired by science fiction, crafted perfectly imagined worlds where technology seemed to merge with the aesthetics of the Renaissance and Baroque. His works, full of detail and precision, resembled illustrations from the books of Lem or Verne, depicting the future as a place full of mystery and harmony.
Andrzej Fogtt approaches the vision of the future in a different way—his painting is dynamic, full of energy and movement, and his forms seem to extend beyond the static space of the canvas. In his compositions, he creates a world where the human figure and its surrounding reality merge in abstract form. His monumental paintings can be seen as a pictorial vision of the future, where energy, light, and space play a central role. This approach demonstrates that the future in art is not one-dimensional—it can be both full of fear and an exciting opportunity to explore new worlds.
Although both Andrzej Fogtt and Zdzisław Beksiński created visions of the future, their approach to the subject is fundamentally different. Beksiński crafted a post-apocalyptic, dehumanized world, full of ruins and organic forms that resembled a grotesque, almost biomechanical symbiosis between technology and the body. His paintings convey a sense of unease about the future—fear of the unknown, the collapse of civilization, and human isolation in a world devoid of hope. In contrast, Fogtt presents the future in a more abstract way, yet one that is brimming with energy and dynamism. His paintings do not depict specific figures or places but instead evoke a sense of movement, transformation, and the interpenetration of forms. For Fogtt, the future is not a dystopian catastrophe but a space full of pulsating energy and possibilities, which contrasts with Beksiński’s melancholic, often catastrophic vision.
Both the dark, pessimistic vision of the future in Beksiński’s work and the abstract, light-filled, and dynamic aesthetic of Fogtt show how diverse artistic interpretations of the same theme can be. Art, regardless of the perspective taken, remains a way of coming to terms with the future—whether through the expression of fears or the creation of new, exciting possibilities.
