Sheparedess

1976
oil/glass
1100 x 1730 mm
signature: down in the right corner: I. Gen. 1976.

On a green hillside on the left side of the composition shepherdess sitting with two cows (black and white) on the right. Repeating the opposition of black and white elements can be read as a subconscious, thus unwittingly, recognized duality of our reality where white means the feminine and the black male principle. The shepherdess is sitting with her back turned to the viewer, whose face only glimpses. In the middle of a composition green glade with a few bundles of herbs and flowers, arranged symmetrically. There is no more detailed processing elements, surfaces become monochrome layers of green and blue, just as generalized signs of pasture and sky. Uniform surface rhythmical precision painted grasses and a few flowers. The upper part of the composition of a blue sky.

Ivan Generalic was born December 21, 1914 at Hlebine, an unnamed village in the region Podravina in the heart of ancient swamps of Pannonia. As a young man took care of the farm work and in his spare time he drew. In the summer of 1930 Krsto Hegedusic and spent the holidays in Hlebine known academic painter and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, by chance he met the young peasant Ivan and soon saw his extraordinary talent. In the footsteps of his thesis on the social peasant paintings, using the technique of painting on glass and experiences of the French painters naifs, Krsto Hegedusic gave Ivan Generalic bfirst painting lessons. Just one year after the young farmer became an extraordinary painter, exhibiting at the third exhibition of a group "Earth" (Zemlya) in Zagreb in 1931. In 1936 with his first solo exhibition Ivan confirmed his genius. Thus was born the Croatian Naive Art. In 1953 he attracted world attention with his solo exhibition in Paris, in 1955 in St. Paul and in 1958 the World Exposition in Brussels, where he secured an important place in the world. Today Ivan Generalic is considered one of the greatest painters of the naive and modern art of the 20th century. Following the example of Generalic the farmers from Hlebine, Podravina and Croatia but also Europe and worlwide began to paint. It set up the so-called Hlebine Art School that defines a style that more than one location. Ivan Generalic held exhibitions around the world, winning awards and accolades, he became a legend already while he was still alive. He died in 1992. His work is an essential part of Croatian and world art.
In 1985 an anex to the Gallery of Naive Art in Hlebine was open in which all of his works are permanently exhibited.