Original scientific paper
Modernity of Edo Kovačević in the 1950ies and 1960ies
Ivanka Reberski
; Znanstvena savjetnica u mirovini
Abstract
Painter Edo Kovačević was a participant of the artistic movements through which the Croatian art in the thirties, and especially after the Second World War, established its own line of modernism. Although his oeuvre has been studied it is still only fragmentarily known. This is in particular true of his post-war modernist attempts from the late forties, for Croatian situation rather early, so this somewhat poorly known phase of his work is the main object of this study. This important period lasting two decades, was initiated by the end of the forties. This is the time when the painter started to visit the Adriatic, and in this southern surroundings new themes and stimuli fermented, in particular the soft color and light which re-entered and enriched his paintings, as exemplified by the painting entitled Rovinj from 1948. Having discarded the last vestiges of anachronism, he spoke up in the language of contemporary modernism. The painting which marks the point of his reaching that meta-language is the self-portrait The Painter, from 1948.
This is the point at which his fundamental painterly characteristics were defined. An exceptional reduction and sublime synthesis had been achieved, a unique chromatic scale of refined and subdued color based on the predominance of blue had been established.
The values achieved by his exemplary sense of nuance rules the works such as the Pomegranate and a Blue Vase, 1955, Old Shapes — The Fireplace, 1958, and The Bird and Cherries, 1958-59, which are the next step in his discovery of "pure" color language transforming the visual reality without ever reaching total abstraction. These new values were applied to his anthological cycle of views of Paris from 1958. In just a handful of small but fundamental paintings — The Louvre, Pont-Royal, Les Tuilleries, Pont Neuf the artist's deepest impressions of Paris were incorporated.
Keywords
Edo Kovačević; painting; 50-ies and 60-ies years of 20. century; modernism; colorism; intimacy; decomposition of picture
Hrčak ID:
167849
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2006.
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