Witkacy’s Paintings as Frozen Drama

In this article the author applies Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński’s claim that Witkacy’s paintings are “theatre frozen on canvas” by examining the many characters who coexist in both his paintings and dramas. This is evident not only in the content of his later drawings and paintings when he was most productive with his dramatic literary output, but also in the subject matter of earlier art pieces before he even began the fruitful period of his dramatic works. Moreover, some of the images in his artwork reflect his own real life experiences. The author borrowing a phrase from Daniel Gerould claims that Witkacy creates a “unified world of imagination” in which various characters appear in multiple literary and art works.