Tag: 1916.

Maksimilijan Vanka, Motif from the Zagreb Surroundings, 1916

Maksimilijan Vanka
Motif from the Zagreb Surroundings, 1916
pastel on paper
23.6 x 31.1 cm
MG-3328

Maksimilijan Vanka (1889–1962) studied painting in Zagreb under Bela Čikoš Sesija and later in Brussels. He served as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb until 1934, after which he moved to the United States. He was a prominent member of the Group of Four, along with Ljubo Babić, Vladimir Becić, and Jerolim Miše, from 1926 to 1929. After Vanka’s departure, the group evolved into the renowned Group of Three. He became a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU) in 1929.
Vanka’s oeuvre is marked by large-scale compositions with folkloric and religious themes, vivid watercolor landscapes, as well as portraits and self-portraits. He also worked in fresco painting and sculpture, and his costume and set designs for Krešimir Baranović’s ballet Licitar's heart. are particularly noteworthy.

In the pastel Motif from the Zagreb Surroundings from 1916, Vanka returns to one of his favorite sources of inspiration – the landscape and customs of the Hrvatsko Zagorje region. Characteristic of his style, the rolling hills with a village and a church perched atop a central hill, along with the dynamic sky occupying the upper quarter of the composition, are rendered with long, energetic strokes and vivid color. Deliberately avoiding subtle tonal gradations, Vanka creates a distinctive form of coloristic expressionism that fundamentally defines his painterly language.

Text by Ivana Rončević Elezović PhD, museum advisor at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Ivan Meštrović, Caryatid, 1908, Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1916

Ivan Meštrović
(1883 – 1962)
Caryatid, 1908
wood
74 x 19 x 13 cm
MG-813

Jesus and Mary Magdalene, 1916
wood
176 x 133.8 cm
MG-815

Ivan Meštrović, one of our greatest sculptors, was formed in the early 20th century, in the spirit of his time and Secession as a stylistic trend. In line with the postulates of Modern art, he made use of the archaic form and wood as the material in which he shaped the Caryatid with “constructive architectonics”, depicted as a standing female nude with the pronounced vertical of the linear drapery slung over the forearm of her left arm, which is raised and bent, and her oval head is bowed. Her right arm hangs loosely alongside the body and is crooked backwards at waist height. The stylized lines soften the compact composition. The wood has a polished texture, the contour lines flow fluidly while light delicately accentuates the surface extrusions.

After Ivan Meštrović finished working on his national cycle, the sculptor increasingly turned to universal religious motifs. The series of Christological wooden reliefs includes the scene of Jesus and Mary Magdalene executed in shallow relief with expressive flatness and linearity of Gothic figures and an emphasis on the elongated arms of the main protagonists of the scene. The central scene of the seated Christ and the kneeling Mary Magdalene is punctuated by the horizontal figural composition in the background. The artistry and expressiveness of the composition carved onto a wooden panel was achieved with flawless linear stylisation.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, Museum advisor of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb