58. View of Trpanj [1950-ih]

Ante Kaštelančić was born in Podstrana in 1911. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, he perfected his painting in Paris and refreshed at the sources of modernism, before his final return to Croatia, or more specifically to Dalmatia, which was the environment tied to most of his work. He died in Split, in 1989. This painting belongs to Kaštelančić's phase in which he measured his own temperament with the expressive and colorfully luxurious modernist authors, whose paintings he encountered in Paris. Restless strokes, which can be attributed to the echo of the painting syntax of Chaïm Soutine (who is often, along with Van Gogh, mentioned as one of the formative influences on the younger Kaštelančić), here create a classic Mediterranean scene. The contrast of deep blue, with which the author depicted the sea in the painting, and lighter tones of yellow and red, creates the tension and dynamics of this composition. The Mediterranean motif escapes the charm of decoration or the banality of the everyday scene. It becomes the personal expression of the painter, which combines his life experience (the sensitivity of a man who grew up on the Mediterranean) and his life as an artist, informed about contemporary painting trends and their specific possibilities. Ante Kaštelančić will very quickly, after his expressive and colorful phase, also try out gestural abstraction, and this painting shows his mature understanding of the logic of strokes and color (the basics of gestural abstract expression), and points to his further creative evolution. FG

Dimensions

width 80 cm, height 60 cm

Description

oil on hardboard, signed lower right, in white, "A. Kaštelančić"

Research information

We thank Mrs. Sabina Kaštelančić (daughter of Ante Kaštelančić) for providing additional information and literature related to this work.

Dating

1950-ih

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