34. Oaks in the Rocky Area III. [1955.-1957.]

This very interesting painting by Frane Šimunović depicts his usual motif: the stony region of Dalmatian hinterland and its borders, rhythmized, this time, by the vertical lines of low trees, as the title suggests, oaks: probably the evergreen Holm oak, which is common in that area. It refers to the homeland of this painter (born in Dicmo near Sinj in 1908, and died in Zagreb in 1995), to which he returned throughout his life in his landscapes. He graduated from the Art Academy in 1934 in Zagreb, and then, following the suggestion of professor Ljubo Babić, he spent a year in Madrid, where he absorbed painting skills from the old masters of Spanish baroque. These experiences are present in his very expressive oeuvre - in the skilled use of black which gives his landscapes a dramatic impression of existential anguish. The expression of savage karst with fenced pieces of arable land is his classic motif. The sparse trees with humble canopies in this landscape seek the earth to grow with the same persistence that the inhabitants of this area have fenced off pieces of land and brought soil into it, in order to succeed in planting something and securing their existence. Šimunović's landscapes are a metaphor for human life, painful everyday life but also the persistence of human survival. There are never people on them, and in this case the vertical lines of the trees, distributed across the karst, give the picture a rhythm (which is their formal-compositional role) and additionally remind us how much stubbornness, persistence, endurance, and even plain luck is needed, to live on this cruel stone. FG

Dimensions

width 80.5 cm, height 57.5 cm

Description

oil on plywood, signed down left, in red, "F. Šimunović"

Dating

1955.-1957.

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