Onion

1987
graphic/ paper
part of a graphic map "Carrousel")
485 x 345 mm
signature: down in the right corner: Josip Generalić, 1987.; in the left corner: 88/100

A human heart in the center of composition. Around it cutted human limbs and a poem about life

At the end of the seventies a new phase at the Generalic creativity has started. If at first he was obsessed with beauty, after 1978 he is beginning to emphasize the deformity. Podravina and Arcadia, pastoral and idyllic scenes disappear. Based on his own drama (mother's death, disagreements with his father)he began to witness the tragic sense of life. Everything becomes full of dire message, shows the reverse side of the world, animality of human nature, we see a number of bizarre erotic allusions. Mocking greed and corruption, the dark human passions, emphasizes the moral outrage of the image of the tragic scenes of modern life. These are no longer symbols of dread, but depictions of horror himself, intolerable existential view. Obviously painter was obsessed in disruption of the contemporary world and man. At this stage the black is full of monstrous creatures, mutants, both human and animal features. In addition to the iconography of horror, diabolic sarcasm and irony are dominant features. Change in themes and content has entailed modification techniques: he creates very little on glass, now he gets more concentrated to watercolors and graphics. (https://naiveartgallery.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/josip-generalic/)

Josip Generalic was born February 19, 1935 in the village Hlebine in Podravina. where he finished elementary school. First works are painted under the influence of his teacher and father, the great Ivan Generalic. His debut was in 1954 in Krizevci. His first solo exhibition was held in the Koprivnica Town Museum in 1959. In 1960 Josip left the native village, Hlebine, and moved to Zagreb where he finished studies of pedagogy. Living in cities put him under urban influences so he creates the cycle of portraits of famous personalities (the Beatles, Sophia Loren, Yul Brynner, Jopplin Janis, John Lennon and others) in Naive Art manner. A few years later, Josip pallete became black. Entering the depths of the human subconscious, he is on the side of human suffering, representing evil and violence. By the early nineties, the black phase has subsided and he returned to the native village. This painter and graphic artist is present in many galleries and many museums and has published a large number of graphical maps. He died 22 December 2004 in Koprivnica.

Peom by Dragutin Feletar. Dragutin Feletar was born on July 10, 1941, in Veliki Otok, near Legrad (place nearby Koprivnica). Geographer (PhD in Geography) and writer. He is the author of many articles, professional books and monographs, research papers and a book of poems. He lives and works in Koprivnica.