Milan Laluha (1930-2013)

UNTITLED

1970s - 1980s
Oil on canvas, 52x74 cm, framed. For commentary on this work by one of the most significant members of „Galandovci“ group, it is best to turn to the text by Ján Bakoš, one of the most prominent Slovak art historians. "An integral part of Laluha`s painting is the depiction of figures. Figures of women, men, solitaires, and couples in countless variations point to both vertical and horizontal compositions. The figure is transformed into a symbol, the center of which is a circle, symbolizing eternity and immutability. From it, various sections are derived, which are spread across the surface of the painting while also dynamicizing them. The expressive power lies in simplicity, robustness, and symbolic imagery. The ethnographic affiliation of the person in his paintings can be determined by the shape of a shortcut, a hint of a collar or hat, but the concrete is only a pretext. The primary principle becomes the counterpoint of geometrically abstracted and modelled closed forms." The female figure in a hat, depicted in the painting with the typical Laluha`s shortcut, is truly the perfect essence of shape, which is both a symbol and a stylized ornament, as well as a real line of the neck and shoulders and all other imagined shapes under which femininity is conceived. A significant work by a significant representative of the Slovak art scene, not only of the second half of the 20th century. Minor damage to the canvas on the right in the middle. Ján Bakoš et al., Milan Laluha, Bratislava 1997, p. 187.