Tag: Frano Kršinić

Frano Kršinić, Meditation, 1965

Frano Kršinić
(1897 - 1982)
Meditation, 1965
carving, marble
28 x 38 x 16 cm
MG-2613

Frano Kršinić, a member of the academy and an academic sculptor, studied in Prague and worked as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where he also served as a rector for many years. With a lyrical soul, he remained deeply connected to his homeland while pursuing his artistic and pedagogical career in Zagreb. He solidified his subtle formative style through artistic endeavours that spanned over half a century in Croatian modern art. Kršinić revitalised the ancient Mediterranean stone-working tradition in an innovative way, merging a high level of craftsmanship with a direct understanding of the essence of things, marked by lyrical sensitivity, graceful subtle movements, and a gentle overall atmosphere. His works are genuinely unconditional and cohesive entities, featuring rounded, synthetic forms, artistically executed with a high degree of sculptural purity.
Kršinić is a poet of the female form, a sculptor captivated by lyricism and the motifs of his childhood (the island and the sea). He reached the pinnacle of creativity with his distinctive female nudes in bronze, stone, and marble, each consistently radiating a captivating charm, grace, and vitality.
Kršinić’s sculpture embodies a dreamy enchantment, timeless tranquillity, and introspective quality, as exemplified by the marble female nude “Meditation” from 1965. This allegory of meditation is an intimate piece, characterised by sumptuous nudity and the warm fullness of a youthful body. Through gentle modelling and subtly suggested facial features, the artist appears to realise a dream that is just beginning to take shape in reality. His intimist works, inspired by lyrical experiences, are distinguished by their authentic accent. In his creations, Kršinić elevated femininity to a symbolic level. The poetry of the young female body is shaped into a flawless synthesis of plasticity. These works radiate beauty through rhythm and harmony, serenity, and balance. By exploring the motifs of women, he achieved the metaphysical principles of existence, resolving the ancient dichotomy between body and spirit. His subtly carved female nudes in marble stand as the finest examples of this genre in our art, celebrated for their pure beauty of form and surface.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant 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

Frano Kršinić, Diana, 1929

Frano Kršinić
(1897 – 1982)
Diana, 1929
bronze
MG-1349

After having studied sculpture at the Crafts School in Korčula and at the Sculpture and Stonemasonry School in Hořice in the Czech Republic (1913 – 1917), Kršinić went on to graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1917 – 1921). He was one of the founding members of the Earth Association of Artists and a member of the Independent Collective of Croatian Artists. With his refined sculpture and unconstrained approach to teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, he made significant contributions to the development of contemporary Croatian sculpture.
Kršinić was an advocate of the trend in Croatian modern sculpture that pursued simplicity and synthesis of pure forms. He worked with traditional sculptural materials and was inspired by the brightness and beauty of the Mediterranean, permanently preoccupied with the female form and occasionally with native, portrait and monument themes. He achieved the highest artistic range in female nudes with recognisable expressions marked by a synthesis of classical form and lyrical content, refined round shapes, unique balance, conciseness and volume tension, soft lines, light and a masterful surface treatment. His bronze sculptures are inspired by mythological heroines, Amazon women and Diana, and shaped in wonderfully harmonious lines and movements. The sculptor does not depict his goddess of the hunt Diana as a traditional goddess, but as a young woman, corporeal and nude, in the position of an archer, as if stringing a bow, focused on her game.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant 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

Frano Kršinić, Young Woman Tending a Rose, 1953

Frano Kršinić
(1897 – 1982)
Young Woman Tending a Rose, 1953 (detalj)
casting, bronze
188 x 55 x 68 cm
MG-2449

After having studied sculpture at the Crafts School in Korčula and at the Sculpture and Stonemasonry School in Hořice in the Czech Republic (1913 – 1917), Kršinić went on to graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1917 – 1921). He was one of the founding members of the Earth Association of Artists and a member of the Independent Collective of Croatian Artists. With his refined sculpture and unconstrained approach to teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, he made significant contributions to the development of contemporary Croatian sculpture.
Using visually reduced elements, calm line, balanced building of mass, and idealisation and spiritualisation of forms, Kršinić succeeded in creatively assimilating the elements of Štursa’s art in the way he conceptualised and composed his motifs, as well as Maillol’s synthesis of form, inspired by the classical and Mediterranean tradition, particularly evident in a series of his female nudes.
The works of Frano Kršinić installed in public space represent examples of sculpture harmoniously blending with its surroundings, such as this standing female nude titled Young Woman Tending a Rose in the park on King Petar Krešimir IV Square in Zagreb, while the joie de vivre that the work radiates now also elevates the lobby of Providur’s Palace in Zadar. With its refined form, taut surfaces and harmonious outlines, the sensual figure of a woman leaning slightly forward balances descriptiveness and stylisation of soft forms.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Frano Kršinić, Dancer, 1933

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