Joso Bužan
(1873-1936)
Diggers, 1916
oil on cardboard, 19 x 24.5 cm
MG-415
Joso Bužan (1873–1936) studied painting in Zagreb, Vienna, Germany and Italy.
He mostly painted genre scenes from village life, especially the region of Zagreb, and portraits. Stylistically, his visual expression belongs to the pleinairist and pseudo pleinairist Realism and Colourism of uneven quality. He was active on the Croatian art scene at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, so his name has to be mentioned.
The small-format painting Diggers from 1916 is a typical example of Bužan’s painting. The simple composition with three main elements of the sky, the soil and the lines of the manual labourers at work is animated by the diagonals of their distribution. The simple colour scheme is dominated by the springtime light green and brown colour of the soil, the azure of the clear sky and the white of the clouds and the workers’ clothes.
Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović, museum consultant © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb