20. Female Nude [1921.]

Jerolim Miše (Split 1890 - Split 1970) is a Croatian painter and art critic. He was educated first in his native Split, then at the academy in Zagreb, and art schools in Rome and Florence. He was close to the Medulić society, operating within the Spring Salon from which he then separated and became a kind of spiritual initiator of the Group of Independent Artists (1921-27) which includes authors like Lj. Babić, Z. Šulentić, V. Varlaj and I. Meštrović. After the army from 1915-1917, Miše worked as a drawing teacher at grammar schools in Krapina, then in Brod na Savi and finally at the Crafts and Girls' Grammar School in Zagreb. The early period of Miše's painting is characterized by the influence of Nietzche's, Bergson's and Mach's ideas and current psychoanalysis research. His early painting is dominated by the drive to reconcile the artistic work and mental state, putting the similarity with the painted object in the background. This understanding of art changes during the 1920s when Miše turns to realistic starting points, focuses on the loyalty of the painted object and joins the Group of Independent Artists. During the 1930s, Miše, then operating within the Group of Three (1930-35), turns to the unresolved issue of national expression by painting scenes from central and southern Dalmatia in the spirit of magical realism. At the end of the 1930s, Miše became an associate, then a regular professor at the academy in Belgrade, and from 1947 until retirement he taught as a regular professor at the academy in Zagreb. In the period immediately after the II. World War, Miše remains associated with his native Dalmatia now painting landscapes as a place of human labor, influenced by the aesthetics of socialist realism. During the 1950s he approaches associative lyrical abstraction and structured landscape, while in the 1960s he returns to realistic motifs of Split. An oil on canvas of large dimensions entitled Female act is signed in the lower right corner. The center of the scene is occupied by a naked female figure placed on the floor between two wooden poles. Her raised hands, leaning against the poles, are probably tied out of the frame, and her golden hair seems to fly in the wind stretching up along her left hand. The youthful girl is in an almost abstract, unrecognizable space. Expressive strokes, a bit disturbing palette, body position and the facial expression of the girl evoke a still present psychological, expressionist component visible in Miše's earlier works. Works like "Female act" (1921) emphasize his focus on the human figure and emotional depth of his subjects and scenes.

Dimensions

width 90 cm, height 126.5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, in black, "Miše (19)21"

Dating

1921.

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