20. Stonemason [1976.]

Frano Šimunović was born in Dicmo near Sinj in 1908. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1934, after which he spent a year in Madrid. He was a member of the JAZU. He died in Zagreb in 1995. The influence of classical Spanish painting and its strong contrasts are visible in his oeuvre. He synthesized the landscape of Dalmatian hinterland, with emphasized boundaries around fields, into an almost abstract painterly expression. His landscapes consist of fields alternating in a pronounced rhythm and contrast of lines, where white strokes highlight black constructions, namely strong shadows suggested by the strong sun of the landscapes he paints. He transformed the specificity of the boundaries in the landscape into an expressive modernist sign. From the 1960s, under the influence of international informel, he paints with a distinctly textural expression, which further emphasizes the specific painting expression on his landscapes (along with the aforementioned abstraction). The landscape from 1976 is characteristic of Šimunović's creativity and can be said to be a demonstrative example of his poetics and aesthetics. In the dense strokes of this painting, black boundary lines enclose irregular planes highlighted by lighter gray tones. The central part of the painting is accentuated with strokes of green and yellow, and yellow appears again in several places, emphasizing contrast with black lines. The fields and horizon are almost completely connected, transformed into painterly expression and expressed entirely in the painterly language. (F.G.)

Dimensions

width 54 cm, height 39 cm

Description

oil on hardboard, signed bottom left, in black, "F. Šim"

Dating

1976.

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