114. Illustration for the book Don Quixote [1950-ih]

Vladimir Kirin is one of the most significant and certainly the most popular painters of Croatian vedutism, who, over five decades of artistic activity, created a superior body of drawings, prints, illustrations and unique "antique" city vedutes for which he is most remembered. He was often declared a "chronicler of lost time" and in Croatian art history he was highlighted in the context of neo-romantic and pastatistic expressions. For the general public, Kirin was and remains the favorite painter of "old" Zagreb and an artist with whose paintings we first got close, already in childhood while flipping through Andersen's fairy tales or following the lunacy of Bjesomar and Potjeh's search in Ivana Brlić Mažuranić's Forest Stribor, which in the 30s were masterfully illustrated by Kirin’s watercolors. Stories from Cervantes' Don Quixote with adventures of the "clear knight of Manche" and his shield bearer Sancho Panza, Kirin illustrated with 16 oil paintings. The fact that he opted for oil, rather than watercolor or washable ink this time, should be viewed in the context of the painter's post-war dedication to working with oil paints; That his "work lasts longer", he used to say. After 1945 and the dramatic "process" of the new government against him, and other artists who were active in any form during the war, Kirin is removed from the Academy of Fine Arts and lives in isolation in his house in Samobor and works in a studio for "his soul". When finally in 1957 the call came to illustrate the adventures of Cervantes' heroes, Kirin and friend Mate Ujević, encyclopedist and editor who during wartime graphically designed the first Croatian encyclopedia, again got to work during which Kirin painted this picture rich in details and composition.

Dimensions

width 70 cm, height 86.5 cm

Description

oil on canvas

Research information

The work is an illustration for the novel "Don Quixote", M. de Cervantes, Publication Our Children, Zagreb, 1951.

Dating

1950-ih

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