Izvorni znanstveni članak
Plea for a critical anthology of Ivan Večenaj
Vladimir Crnković
; Hrvatski muzej naivne umjetnosti, Zagreb
Sažetak
Plea for a critical anthology of Ivan Večenaj consists of four chapters: the fi rst discusses the synthesis achieved between rural genre scenes and landscape approaches, in which the artist elevates the everyday scenes of peasant life to the level of scenes from fairy tale. At the same time, in the forceful and indeed sometimes aggressive colour we discover his genuine pictorial art, audacity and innovativeness, his colourist magic. The author notes the long-since established harmony that exists between humanity and nature; he pays scant attention to the changes that have taken place in the Croatian countryside in the last decades. Večenaj paints a patriarchal, backward and impoverished life – but without any ulterior social motives. In the second chapter there is a discussion of the artist’s sill lifes, where the emphasis is
placed on the very distinctive Večenaj hyperrealism. In these works, the artist uses all the opportunities of composition, perspective and colour to attain a maximum emphasis on the principal motif. The exceptional lyricism of these paintings is mostly backed up with light, bright colours, particularly of the sky. Chapter Three, on the portraits, focuses on the grotesque, burlesque and powerful stylisation of the fi gures, again on the hyperrealism of Večenaj, and the “aesthetics of the ugly”; it is also shown that Večenaj’s paintings have not only artistic but great documentary value, for they are credible and touching testimonies to the life of Croatian people and regions as they once were. And fi nally, in the last chapter, we have a consideration of the artist’s religious themes, in which Večenaj’s most important contributions to the art of the Hlebine School inhere. He has made good his claim to be considered an exceptional personality of not only Croatian but also worldwide religious art. The exuberant, extremely expressive and mystical phantasmagorias tell of the complicity of vernacular, collectivist and traditional fancy, of late Baroque piety that lasted unchanged in Croatia until well nigh the middle of the 20th century, the many apocryphal interpretations, and the author’s modern pictorial idiom. At a number of levels, the artist shows great freedom, not adhering to settled rules or to the canons, but presenting very personal visions. In Večenaj, it is mysticism that is more important than religiousness. Eighteen paintings are mentioned in the study, and there are separate and detailed discussions of fi ve artworks.
Ključne riječi
Ivan Večenaj; paintings; Hlebin school; naive; modern sacral art; painting on glass
Hrčak ID:
199545
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2010.
Posjeta: 1.041 *