Jakub Rozalski is a very talented and largely unknown Polish artist who mashes up classical rural landscapes with sci-fi dystopia.
Deep in the Polish countryside, giant fighting robots do battle while peasants look on in wonder.
The series is called 1920, after one of the most famous victories in Polish history. The Polish army repulsed the Soviets in the Battle of Warsaw and won the freedom of their county for all of 20 years.
Rozalski re-imagines the conflict, but with the addition of giant mechanized robots. Its a fantastic concept and reminds me a bit of Red Alert, combining history and sci-fi.
The Battle of Warsaw was incredibly significant for Europe & the world; it halted the Russian Revolution and drove communism back for 20 years until the Soviets made a sneaky pact with the Nazis. There is an element of pride in the way the Polish resisters are portrayed as courageous and resolute.
In some pictures there is a bear. This is a nod to Wojtek the Bear, who was the official mascot of the 22nd Artillery Company, and served at Monte Cassino.
The mechs take the same role as the Polish cavalry, who were often painted in early works in a very heroic manner. Rozalski cites Kossak, Chełmoński, or Shishkin as artistic inspirations.
There is also a Star Wars homage, as Rozalski admits to being a big fan, and as a child was blown away by the Battle for the Planet Hoth in The Empire strikes Back. As a youngster, Rozalski was interested in sci-fi & fantasy, and consumed a lot of comics and videos, but also national romantic poets like Sienkiewicz, novelists like J.R.R Tolkien, Stanislaw Lem & Andrzej Sapowski.
At school, learning about World War 2 was almost all of what history was about, and he grew fascinated in the conflict that had ravaged his homeland within the memory of his grandparents.
He grew up in a small rural village, near Szczecin, and first started the painted forests and fields around him as a boy. He said he was always bad at painting people, so he started putting mechs in his images. Since then his skills have come long way, and he is starting to make a name for himself in the sci-fi and arts world.
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