The artistic creation of Zuzka Medvedova in the context of the History of Art Painting |
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A thorough knowledge and evaluation of the work of Zuzka Medved'ova isn't possible if
the specific traditional and ethnographic approach is not mentioned and explained in the
Slovak art of painting, and without the awareness of its tendencies in the historic context.
This specific direction, by creativity oriented towards rural themes, that is, to painting in
folk style, and in its beginnings towards painting portraits of significant people from
public life, ac-tually began in the middle of the last century as an initiative from K. ?tur,
and was manifested in the art painting form. In the very beginning of such activities
stands a painter and lithographer Peter Michal Bohun (1822-1879), who announced an
art painting program in the Tatran Eagle (1846), where he determined his art tendency to
publish lithographic paintings coloured by hand, of Slovak folk dresses, paintings of
Slovak landscapes and paintings of important people. Such an oriented program in
themes - although applied to Slovaks from Vojvodina contrary to Bohun - is very close to
the art orientation in themes of the painter Zuzka Medved'ova.
The art tendencies of painting in folk style were especially expressed in Slovakia in the
nineties of the last century. The most significant artists of this period are Jozef Hanula
(1863-1944) and painters of the so-called Group of Hungarian-Slovak painters that was
founded by the iniciative of Jaroslav Augusta (1878-1970), a painter, and who set their
task to be the art painting treatment of the life of the Slovak village. Beside Jaroslav
Augusta, the members of the asso-ciation were also Gustav Mally (1879-1952) and Emil
Pacovsky (1879-1948).
The first academic painter of the Slovaks from Vojvodina, Karol Miloslav Lehotsky (1879-
1929), born in Lalit', answered to the invitation of his colleague and friend from the
Academy of Prague, Jaroslav Augusta, and exhibited through this first painting program
of the association in Slovakia, and under his influence, for a certain period of time, was
engaged in the rural folk style and portraits in the folk style. In the context of the history
of art painting of Slovaks in Yugo-slavia, it is thus possible to determine a certain link of
the art work of Zuzka Medved'ova with this period of creativity of K. M. Lehotsky.
The influence of the art painting program of the Group of Hungarian-Slovak painters
emitted for a long time, and rearhed its peak in the art work of Martin Benka (1888-
1971), who met Zuzka Medved'ova during his stay in Petrovec in 1934. His
monumentality represents the peak of the traditional folk form of an ethnographic
painting, but at the same time it was its en-ding. It is necessary to emphasize here that
the twenties of this century - with the elements of luminism and the domination of style
and an ethnographic painting - were in the Slovak art of painting on the level of thought
of the 19th century, and only in the thirties, when Zuzka Medved'ova already finished her
studies and was working in Petrovec, the artists Mikula? Galan-da and Eudovit Fulla
directed the Slovak art of painting towards the moderna.
The artistic work of Zuzka Medved'ova should be considered and evaluated in these
terms, because she arose from the mentioned coordinates of a traditional painting in folk
style, which she did not denounce until the end of her life, regardless of the new artistic
treatment for art creativity in contemporary art of painting.
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