oil on canvas, 56 x 70 cm, signed and dated bottom left, in black, "Detoni 1939"

Research information

The work was exhibited at the large retrospective exhibition of Marijan Detoni in Zagreb, March 3 – 23, 1940, House of Fine Arts, where 235 works were presented, of which more than 80 were oil paintings, under catalog number 19. "Paysage s Kalnika II".

Marijan Detoni (Križevci, 1905. - Zagreb, 1981.) is often recognized publicly for socially engaged art that records the lives of urban poor. He was also a member of the Zemlja group, which was a key driver of modernist tendencies at the time. In the 1930s, Detoni documented social injustices and empathetically interpreted them through his paintings and graphics. However, it should be noted that this part of his creative output was short-lived. Shortly after his stay in Paris in 1939, Detoni painted 'Landscape from Kalnik'. Inspired by modernist ideas and aesthetics, the Kalnik landscape leads to pre-abstract, phantasmagoric ecstasy. Detoni's simplified drawing technique, almost impulsive lines, and spontaneous composition animate the landscape in an expressionist manner. The artist uses coloristic perspective, that is, with warm colors he brings simplified architectural forms closer to the observer's eye, which also represent a fixation point. Despite the non-mimetic approach to color and the reduction of trees and houses in the landscape to minimal forms, it is still possible to sense that this landscape is not a product of his imagination. This is about the spacious landscapes of Kalnik, the essence of which Detoni successfully preserved.

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