22. Šestine Laundresses (Church of St. Xavier) [1908.]

Joso Bužan belongs to the generation of Zagreb painters who, through the brief but intense influence of Vlaho Bukovac in Zagreb (1893 - 1903) discovered "impressionism" and the coloristic potential of colors, turning to plein air painting. Bužan paints his genre scenes in a landscape with a brighter palette saturated with white values. From the 1920s, the palette was dominated by the red color born of the painter's fascination with folk costumes, which remained a source of inspiration for Bužan's entire creative life. But also the landscape - which usually surrounds the moving figures in his paintings - becomes a vibrant picture of nature and the seasons that determine it. Play of light and shadow, idyllic atmosphere and spontaneity in realistic expression are the features of Bužan's painting and the realized scene from the picture "Šestine Washerwomen" at the approach to the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Zagreb. The painter varied picturesque scenes from peasant life, charged with suggestive life optimism, on numerous canvases of large and small dimensions during the 1920s. The wide audience accepted these paintings wholeheartedly and Joso Bužan gained great popularity during his creative life. During the post-war period, a time of epochal debates between the leaders of abstraction and post-modern, the painter's work was pushed to the margins of Croatian art until 1974 and the serious exhibition in the Modern Gallery which – by presenting numerous Bužan's paintings from its deposit – adequately evaluated the cultural and artistic significance of the painter's oeuvre. (B.R.P.)

Dimensions

width 78.5 cm, height 56.5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed at the bottom right, in black, "Joso Bužan"

Dating

1908.

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