Original scientific paper
The Simbolismin the work of Gabriel Jurkic on the beginning and end of World War: Truth between the real and unreal
Clara Tomic Bleibtreu
; Gimnazija Simone Weil, Pantin—Paris
Abstract
The work of Gabrijel Jurkić must be viewed within the frame of idealism which characterizes symbolism. Selecting two pictures, Clara Bleibtreu Tomic conducts a semiological analysis of the symbolism of the fact that the first picture, Visoravan u cvatu (Hillside in bloom), was created at the beginning of the war, in Sarajevo, in spring 1914 in the artist's studio which stood 300 meters from the place where the Austro-Hungarian Archcluke was assassinated thus at the very place and moment of the outbreak of war. Although nothing in this painting visually interprets the war, Visoravon u cvatu directly symbolizes events which followed that spring. The author explains the picture's symbolism through the composition of the ground which can be seen beneath the margaritas (the legendary Field of Kupres) and through the symbol of margarita/Margaret and the painting technique.
In the second picture, which dates from the end of the war in autumn 1918 and carries the name Kod ovaca (Among the sheep), the author analyses the symbols of sheep/Lamb of God, of the shepherdess who in the picture resembles the Virgin Mary, and the spindle which she holds in her hand, which, since the time of Athena and via the Sleeping Beauty myth, symbolizes innocence, and the symbol of the green-tinted sky which is not the real colour of sky but an artistic value which carries the significance that this picture stands at the "beginning of things".
The author concludes that the apparently realistic landscapes of Gabrijel Jurkić have new horizons which integrate elements within the landscape that do not represent reality, but which intervene in the landscape in order to convey icleas that the author wishes to express. The totality of the picture's meaning arises from the interpretation of those nonrealistic motifs which carry ideas and of their relations, such as a field of flowers that is impassable, or a landscape without paths, which are not in fact needed, because all the signs conveyed by the picture lead only one way, towards the green-tinted sky which envelopes the landscape.
Keywords
Gabrijel Jurkić; painting; 20th century; secession; symbolism; landscape; semiology
Hrčak ID:
148741
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2005.
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