FRANO KRŠINIĆ
1897 – 1982
Dancer
1933
bronze
165.5 x 30 x 81 cm
MG-2200
Academician and academic sculptor, Prague student, professor and rector at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, his lyrical soul was immersed in his native Mediterranean environment, while his artistic and educational work was accomplished in Zagreb. During more than half a century of artistic activity he left a permanent imprint in Croatian modern art with his subtle, discreet and refined form. Kršinić revitalised the old Mediterranean sculptural tradition in a modern way, combining high craftsmanship in design with an immediate understanding of the essence of things dominated by lyrical sensibility, lightness of discrete movements and gentle atmosphere. His oeuvre is a consolidated whole of rounded synthetic forms and high artistic achievements in full sculptural purity of modelling.
A master of lingering sensibility, a perfectionist and a virtuoso, he enriched and perfected his artistic expression during his most prolific 30-year period, which includes the softly modelled gracious figure of the Dancer in motion. An upright female nude with a slender body turned forward, her head in half profile with a lowered gaze between raised bent arms, with feet apart, her right foot on her toes and positioned on a shallow elongated plinth. The poetics of the young female body is shaped with flawless synthesis of plasticity. The beauty of the nude radiates serenity and harmony, rhythm and graceful presentation.
Elaborating the motifs of women, Kršinić reached the metaphysical principles of being, in which the age-old antithesis between body and spirit is resolved. His poetic female nudes are the best works of their kind in Croatian art for the sheer beauty of their forms and surface wherein femininity is elevated to the symbolic level.
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