Anton Jasusch — Mood Landscape

Anton Jasusch was the most important representative of “Košice modernism”¹ and one of the most important personalities of Slovak art of the first half of the 20th century. He created his original painting program that was based on expressionistic-Art Nouveau language, abstracting shapes, captivating play with colour and addressing basic ontological questions that are still relevant even for the current viewer. Nevertheless, he had not been fully appreciated or understood during his lifetime, neither by the professionals nor the general public. Nor was he accommodated by the former communist regime. Jasusch’s artistic contribution has not been fully recognised until recently and that happened mainly thanks to a deeper research of the “phenomenon” called the Košice modernism.

His early works (1908-1914) were mostly inspired by periodical artistic tendencies, especially symbolism, Art Noveau and expressionism. He was influenced strongly by the works of Konštantín Kővári-Kačmarik, József Rippl-Rónai or Ferdinand Katona who was a close friend of his. Jasusch spent this period painting mostly landscapes and motives of everyday life. He used simple visual composition and concentrated on the matters of colour, surface and lines – the basic painting principles that he also studied later over the course of his whole career. The First World War was a key turning point in Jasusch’s personal life and his painting program as well.² His experiences from the front lines and prison camps, along with his journey home that led him through the countries of the Far East had a strong influence on him. He started to focus on existential themes and a search for the meaning of life that he also reflected in his paintings. These paintings that were created between 1920-1924³ are considered a part of the artist’s peak period. One of their characteristic features is a combination of an expressionistic-Art Nouveau language and a modernistic approach towards building an image. The paintings contain strong symbolism and allegorical scenes based on the idea of an all-powerful agent – a superhuman, spiritual, destructive force that “controls the fate of the universe, our planet, humanity and individual people.” ⁴ The paintings of this period often contain Jasusch’s critical and sarcastic attitude that he used to point out that humans are incapable of resisting their predetermined fate.⁵ After this important creative period, the artist’s work started to be more inconsistent and conventional, probably due to his both psychological and physical exhaustion. 

The last distinctive period of Anton Jasusch’s work came towards the end of his lifetime. In 1958, he had a solo exhibition in Košice that presented his works of the 1920s. It was Jasusch’s opportunity to see these works for the first time since they were presented in Bratislava in 1924. This experience gave the artist a creative stimulus.⁶ On the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, Jasusch created a large number of paintings featuring countryside and World War themes like concentration camps and partisans. He also devoted his time to landscape painting as we can see in the painting from Nitra Gellery’s collection. It is titled Mood Landscape and was created during this period. 

The modestly sized oil painting was created on cardboard. Towards the end of his career, Jasusch opted for cheaper materials than canvas due to his financial situation.⁷ The artwork is horizontally oriented rectangular which follows the tradition of landscape painting techniques. The theme of the painting is a countryside panorama. It follows a simple triangular composition that focuses on its central axis. The scene consists of three main parts: the front is dominated by a large arable field, the central part features wooden houses with trees between them and the last one is covered by sky with the sun positioned towards the top right corner of the image. The image dynamics lies in its diagonally oriented elements as well as in its unfinished scene that seems to continue beyond the frame. The painting’s simple imagery is enriched with curved organic lines that represent Jasusch’s Art Nouveau experience and also thick, rapid outlines of shapes that follow the principles of German expressionism. The artist uses modernistic approach to eliminate elements and shapes from the image that leave colour to be the only means of expression of the final artwork. The colour palette is dominated by shades of brown and green. The artist’s play with colour makes the viewer focus on the central part of the image. Otherwise monotone colour scheme is disrupted with light shades of clouds or white house sidings. The central part is also highlighted with sun rays that account for the use of yellow and orange shades that create a pulsating contrast once they meet with the green parts. Thick and rapid layers of cold, darker and earthy colours invoke a dreary, nostalgic feeling of the overall composition. The described features of the Mood Landscape oil painting formally follow Jasusch’s extraordinary works of the 1920s and it is one of the most representative samples of the diverse style of the artist’s late period.