|
In the two paintings Karl Johan I and II (1985 and 1997) Antonio Saura presents a recurrent theme in his art: the crowd. The titles refer to Edvard Munch's painting Evening on Karl Johan (1892), yet his painting Angst (1894) also focuses on the same group of blank staring faces. In these pictures, Munch portrays the situation of people towards the close of the 19th century. Urbanisation is progressing apace, and in the city's swarming masses, the individual is increasingly anonymous and isolated. Saura is fascinated by Munch's ornamental composition of a group of isolated people. In these two monumental paintings he has transformed a collection of individual faces into a single ornamental mask. As in Jorn, it is the unbroken, wavy line from Munch's skies, coastlines and human figures which remains in Saura. He comments on that part of Munch's art related to the more decorative aspect of symbolism, in other words, the Frieze of Life pictures from Munch's youth, in which he translates the ornamentalism of art nouveau into a far more personal artistic expression. |
|
