One of the Stations of the Dead (1933-37)

Artist Wyndham Lewis (Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1882 - 1957)

Date1933

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsHeight: 127.6 cm, Width: 75.8 cm
Frame Size: 145.8 x 94.6 x 7.5cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1956 with income from the Macdonald Bequest.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG002522

Keywords

About MeWyndham Lewis was responsible for establishing the Vorticist Group in 1914. This modernist movement combined Cubist and Futurist influences and reflected a modern machine age.

This work is an example of the artist's early extreme abstractions, in which figures are reduced to angular distortions. Here, robotic figures inhabit a space consisting of vertical shapes.

As well as having a fascination for the modern world around him, Lewis was also inspired by classical themes. The title of this picture, together with the suggestions of a boat sailing on a river through a cave, hint that it may have been based on Virgil's description of Charon, the ferryman, conveying the souls of the dead across the river Styx to the Underworld (Virgil 'Aenid' VI 295).

More About Me

Collections Wall

In the grouping of people at the centre of the painting, everyone looks different. Is it possibly a comment suggesting that in death we are all equal?

Exhibitions

Paradise Lost