One man exibition-Josip Siessel
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Till 4th of August a retrospective exhibition of a great Croatian painter, Josip Seissel, is held in the Town Museum in Rovinj.
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Till 4th of August a retrospective exhibition of a great Croatian painter, Josip Seissel, is held in the Town Museum in Rovinj.
Josip Seissel began to paint as a secondary-school pupil. His earliest works have disappeared as well as many other works from the earliest expressionistic period, and his first watercolours and tempera paintings came about 1935. From that year several landscapes have been preserved, such as Lumbarda and Viganj, and portraits such as self-portrait and Portrait of Silvana Seissel. The same year, the painter began with his series of watercolours of Silvana Seissel, which he painted while she was sleeping.
In Paris he meets with the irresistible effect of surrealism and stays loyal to it till his death. In different periods of his life he provided Croatian art with surrealistic works of anthological worth, mostly tempera on paper. Jan-Vana from 1935 belongs to his first surrealistic works. »In time of evil« is a name for numerous surrealistic works made as a reaction to happenings (especially human suffering) somewhere round World War II. Important works, in huge size and tempera, from that series are »The bone and us«, »Faultless object«, »Water-colour according to automatic drawing«.
From 1953 till 1969 he is painting »Underwater landscapes« and »The gardens of sea«, also in the technique of tempera and pastel crayon. »Underwater landscapes«, originating from the early surrealistic works, are inspired by domestic, summer paths through Vela Luka, the island of Šipan, Trstenik, Žuljani and Broce, picturesque places along the Adriatic coast.
In his series of »Underwater landscapes« from the early fifties, Seissel tried to evoke the depth of caves, water reflections, multicoloured moving grass-blades, shadow and light, unusual shapes of pebbles and animals, where he uses reddish, brown, orange, mostly warm colours.
In his later »Underwater landscapes« from the sixties, yellow, brown and grey colours are dominant, and the paintings are of even larger size. These works certainly belong to the most beautiful abstract and spontaneously made tempera paintings at that time.
Many of his paintings are based on a dream, which he used to write down as soon as he woke up.
»Pan-pipes of the night«is a work of that kind. In those works his Emphasis on surrealistic world are based on dreams, imaginary and enigma, sometimes entangled with erotic and humour. On his drawings, paintings and tempera one could find hovering forms, space with no limits, clocks, high hats and normal hats, bones, keys, feathers, eggs, scissors, masks, balconies, pillars, shells, snails, lips, trumpets, black birds, skeletons presenting harps, hovering chairs, mice... Mostly in all of his phases of work, Seissel used watercolours and tempera.
