The Fatal Crash of Karl Buchstätter

This painting from 1928, takes as its theme the fatal crash of the pilot Karl Buchstätter, of which the painter was an eye-witness in 1911. In his typically meticulous style, Radizwill depicts the site of the accident as an almost ghostly scene of both disturbing and significant atmosphere – the airplane crash is just about to happen. A bi-plane visible against a dark sky is heading with a steep downward movement towards a village whose sleeping inhabitants are unaware of the impending danger. The brick architecture of the level crossing guardhouse is still intact, its barriers pointed defensively towards the sky, and the houses bounded by train tracks and the sea are still undamaged. Unlike the Surrealists, Radizwill did not paint landscape from the depths of human psyche fed from phantasmagories and hallucinations or – like Giorgio de Chirico, metaphysical urban scenes. Instead he designed everyday pictorial spaces with their realistic details, transformed into a Surrealist scenario through an often only latently effective, magically charged narration.