Michal Jakabčic — Trees

The Nitra Gallery collection contains several paintings created by Michal Jakabčic. He has left behind a significant artistic footprint full of symbolism that would deserve a more serious theoretical response (even though we have the artist’s monograph and know a rather lot about his personal and professional life, his work is still an interpretational challenge).

Jakabčic’s creative style was influenced by poeticism and the language of new figuration and metaphysical painting. Later on, he would usually lean toward surrealism which has turned him into a phenomenon of Slovak imaginative painting of the 20th century. He developed his painting language in the fist half of the 1960s by studying the works of Paul Klee or André Derain and others. It gave birth to his unique paintings with intensive colour schemes and figures (puppets).

In the 1970s, he was an engaged artist that followed the ideals of socialist realism. However, despite following the period’s ideology, his work was able to preserve emotive elements full of various symbols (the moon, woman, bird, flower, umbrella, horse, cow, etc.). He composed his ideas in a similar way to his partner/wife, Viera Žilinčanová – as stage backdrops.

He was inspired by Slovak cultural history. His childhood experiences (elements) determined the character of his magical realism which served him well throughout his whole career. Thanks to his high level of craftsmanships, Jakabčic’s work can be considered a painter’s ballad of poeticised (Slovak) landscape. The final phase of his creative life (the second half of the 1980s and the 1990s) carried (sub/conscious?) elements of postmodernism.

The image titled Trees (1985) is a symbolic portrayal of twelve tress, or rather human torsos resembling tress, set in a nighttime landscape covered in the darkness of the night. The bright torsos (bodies) of the trees shine in the shadows of the night. A blue moon emerges from the darkness…

The simple theme is in contradiction with the quality of his technical and artistic craftsmanship. The symbolical portrayal of the nighttime landscape has many possible interpretations. The tree as a symbol of life. The human torso as our fragmented corporal shell. The inconspicuous moon. The simple scene (stage) awaiting how our (own) story of fright and terror develops.

In contemplation of the painting’s scene – is it supposed to portray afterlife… or the time before encountering all of life’s troubles? We do not know as the goal of Michal Jakabčic’s works is not to tell the whole story. They are supposed to stir the surface of the ocean of all the phantasy questions we all carry around.

The torso-tree symbolism can be also found throughout some of the artist’s other works: e.g. Sleeping Rooster (1983); Evening Forest (1983); Let the Birds Sing (1980), Quiet Solitude (1983), Moonshine (1981). His unique creative personality deserves our attention also thanks to hindsight.