Make an offer
Wincenty Czwartos – Ravens and Crows, 2025
Ravens and Crows by Wincenty Czwartos is a monumental oil painting from 2025, in which the artist continues his dialogue with the tradition of the equestrian portrait, the history of painting and the experience of collective trauma. The central motif — a blue rider on a blue horse — transfers the image into the realm of metaphysical solemnity. This is not so much a battle scene as a spectral portrait of a figure suspended between heroism, memory and absence.
The monochromatic blue tonality of the figure and the animal forms one of the painting’s key tensions. This colour may be read as a conscious reference to the work of Andrzej Wróblewski, in whose painting blue often becomes a sign of death, alienation and the crossing of the boundary of life. In Czwartos’s work, blue is therefore not merely a colour. It becomes an ontological status — marking a figure who is already absent, transformed into a painterly trace and a posthumous image.
The composition is based on a collision of different historical and formal orders. The classical, almost Baroque pose of the young nobleman with a drawn sword evokes the tradition of the representative equestrian portrait, associated with power, prestige and military glory. At the same time, this solemn figure is interrupted by the rigorous geometric detail of the saddle. Its rectangular, almost Suprematist form recalls the pure divisions of Kazimir Malevich and the language of modernist reduction.
In this juxtaposition, tradition and the avant-garde do not cancel one another out, but generate ironic tension. The Suprematist sign is absorbed into the structure of a classical image, as if modernity had been tamed by an older order of representation. In this way, Czwartos reveals the persistence of historical cultural models — their capacity to return even when they seem to have been overcome.
The titular ravens and crows are not depicted realistically. They take the form of black, aggressive modules surrounding the rider like ominous fragments, projectiles or signs of an approaching catastrophe. Their rhythmic arrangement around the central figure creates an atmosphere of siege. These birds of death are transformed into a language of modern geometry — less elements of the natural world than signs of threat.
As in Funeral Wreath, Wincenty Czwartos creates a portrait of a young boy entangled in great history. His pride, noble costume and ceremonial pose appear fragile in the face of the violence of conflict. Heroism is shown here as a form of posthumous decoration, behind which lies the real experience of loss. The painting becomes a bitter reflection on the mechanisms of memory that transform youth, death and political violence into an elevated painterly myth.
Ravens and Crows is a work of strong visual presence and considerable symbolic density. It combines a monumental format, Wincenty Czwartos’s recognisable visual language, the tradition of the equestrian portrait, references to the avant-garde and a contemporary reflection on war and history. From a collector’s perspective, the painting stands out through the strength of its composition, its distinctive iconography and its ability to combine decorative appeal with existential unease.
Wincenty Czwartos
Ravens and Crows, 2025
Technique: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 200 × 180 cm
Category: painting
Art movement: figurative art
