Polsce, Chrystusowi Narodów. London, 1939.

SZYK, Arthur. Polsce, Chrystusowi Narodów [Poland, the Christ of Nations]. Signed and Dated “Arthur Szyk London 1939.” Watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and ink on paper. Sheet size: 13 3/4″ x 9 7/8″. Image size: 10 3/4″ x 8 1/2″. Very Good condition.

This powerful design by Arthur Szyk shows Adolf Hitler extending his right arm to his side in front of a scene of the Crucifixion. The rigidity of Hitler’s extended arm and hand point the viewer’s attention to the figure on the cross directly above. On the cross, the symbolic figure of Christ wears a Polish army uniform, complete with a soldier’s cap worn over a crown of thorns. Hitler wears a uniform with a swastika armband and a belt with a swastika on the belt buckle. He also wears jodhpurs, black boots, and a large black holster for a pistol. The face of the dictator is caught in an angry scowl, his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head and his mouth open in exclamation. The entire scene is set on a hill, and at the left foot of Hitler a skull lies menacingly on the ground. Szyk’s use of this setting suggests that he was familiar with the New Testament’s references to the crucifixion of Jesus at a location called Golgotha. According to Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, the name Golgotha “means the place of a skull.” Szyk further juxtaposes ancient and modern motifs of violence and war in this piece with a background scene on Hitler’s left showing the bombed-out structures of a war-ravaged city, including the bodies of human beings and a horse lying on the ground next to a piece of artillery. In the sky above, many birds hover ominously over the city.

In the upper right-hand corner of the piece Szyk has written “Polsce, Chrystusowi Narodów,” a Polish phrase meaning “Poland, the Christ of Nations.” He has signed the work in the lower right-hand corner with “Arthur Szyk London 1939.” The inscription in Polish suggests that Szyk intended the work as a plea to the whole world for the saving of Poland, the artist’s native land, from Nazi invasion and oppression.

During World War II, Arthur Szyk created another illustration relating to the crucifixion and carrying a pointed message. In The Wayside Shrine from 1944, a Nazi officer and two of his soldiers stand in front of a shrine in the form of a large crucifix and gaze in confusion. As in Polsce-Chrystusowi Narodów, a skull lies on the ground in The Wayside Shrine. But in the latter piece Szyk has placed a Nazi helmet emblazoned with a swastika next to the skull, making explicit the theme of the Nazis’ responsibility for war and death.

Publishing History: Newsletter, The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA, March 2013, p. 3.