Original scientific paper
The Building Structure of the Human Body in the Sculpture of Kažimir Hraste
Vinko Srhoj
; Odjel za povijest umjetnosti Sveučilišta u Zadru
Abstract
The author presents a thesis that Kažimir Hraste clearly demonstrates how his sculpture acts from within. Even when he shows the "unattractive" features of the human machine, its inside, that dance of those "woođen carcasses" exudes sensua lity. At the meeting point of the brutally cut wooden chips and some frivolous body motion wiggling or stretching in a pose of a classical nude, the entire tension of hard and supple, of sharp sculptural frame, and complex, gentle, "flowing" motion, is born. In his treatment of the material some believed to have recognized Hraste's closeness to the art of H. Gonzales, P. Picasso, or V. Taljin (D. Kečkemet), some have seen inspiration in the art of O. Zadkine and A. Calder (K. Prijatelj), but all have emphasized Hraste's originality in "materialization of the air surrounding the sculpture" (K. Prijatelj), an air "freely flowing through the cavities among the constructive elements of the sculpture" (D. Kečkemet).
That transparency, i.e., the openness of Hraste's sculpture could become a component of all future works, even of those not to be executed in wood, but, for example, in iron. One should, of course, also mention glass, a material which, thanks to its translucency, Hraste would start to use as an appropriate medium to effect transparency. More and more, the author claims, Hraste's sculptures would count on space as a complement and framework for their presentation. More and more their perception would depend on what is seen through the sculptures, on how the surrounding space participates in the filling up of their insides, and on the kind of conditions of light prevalent in the exhibition space. The brittleness of sculptures would increase, and their balancing act on the very edge of equilibrium would become the basis of their dynamism, of the "instability" of their nature.
By selecting the analytical current of modem art as his own artistic model, Hraste has not, the author claims, tried to functionally purify his sculptures, or to produce economy of form, or achieve careful construction by mathematical measurements which may isolate the most rational solution. Upon all those elements of cubist-constructivist expression he would build his forms by a free addition of parts, by piling up material, even by a certain decorative (thus non-functional) accretions which serve to emphasize the complexity of the structure, as opposed to a "perfect" shape to or from which nothing could be added or taken away. Hraste is, thus, at the first glance, a convinced rationalist, but, the author concludes, free from rigidity. On the contrary, he tends toward a lyrical metaphor to which the post-cubist method is just an auxiliary stylistic means to express the idea, which cannot be reduced to any style, of the human being anđ its spiritual body, more complex than any machine.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
151891
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2004.
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