- 15
Jibson Khundadze
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Description
- Jibson Khundadze
- Metamorphosis of Pirosmani
- signed and dated 87; signed, titled and dated 1987 on the reverse
- oil on canvas
- 97.3 by 96.3cm.; 38 1/4 by 37 3/4 in.
Provenance
TBC Art Gallery, Tbilisi
Exhibited
Tbilisi, Literary State Museum, Jibson Khundadze, 2012
Literature
Nana Shervashidze, Ed., Jibson Khundadze: Painting, Graphics, Tbilisi 2012, p. 147, illustrated in colour
Catalogue Note
Jibson Khundadze, the celebrated master of Georgian modern and contemporary art, was brought up in Tbilisi by highly intellectual parents who had a passion for art, poetry and a strong attachment to Georgian history. As Khundadze grew up listening to the folkloric tales of his homeland, he took to heart the opening line of every fable: 'One was there, one was not, yet could there be anything better than God?'.
Khundadze was educated first at the Technical College of Art and then at the Tbilisi State Academy of Art. The influence of his early mentor Valentin Sherpilov, an artist with a passion for experimenting with art, was tremendously encouraging for the young Khundadze who slowly discovered his own artistic vocabulary and style. The early works of Khundadze were influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pisarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. However, Khundadze was mesmerised by the Cubist artist Paul Cézanne and adopted his radical interpretation of perspective, innovative approach to composition and simplified geometrical forms from early on in his artistic career.
Just as Cézanne revisited the landscape of Provence, so too did Khundadze revisit the rocky and mountainous terrain of his homeland. Over the course of his career he transformed Georgia’s rolling mountains and dramatic landscape into highly stylised and abstract forms executed in angular lines using layer upon layer of paint, slowly moving away from realistic depictions. In the present work, the strong and expressive brushstrokes are carefully applied, building up a surface that is both tactile and balanced. His brilliant approach to colour balance is inherent in the swirling reds, yellows and whites coming to the fore like gems on a rich and radiant black ground.
The title Metamorphosis of Pirosmani is a tribute to the revered Georgian primitivist painter, Niko Pirosmani (1862 - 1918), who achieved fame through his naive depictions of Georgians from all social classes and animals. In the present work, Khundadze’s black background is a reference to Pirosmani’s signature style which was the application of paint directly onto a black oilcloth. In Khundadze’s reinterpretation, similar to his mountains, Pirosmani’s figures are morphed into simple and stylised forms, evoking the transience of life and passing of time.
Always filled with affection for his homeland and constantly drawing from his country’s geography, folklore, tradition and culture, Khundadze is a quintessential Georgian artist, inducing a certain nostalgia in anyone who has the fortune to experience his work.
Khundadze was educated first at the Technical College of Art and then at the Tbilisi State Academy of Art. The influence of his early mentor Valentin Sherpilov, an artist with a passion for experimenting with art, was tremendously encouraging for the young Khundadze who slowly discovered his own artistic vocabulary and style. The early works of Khundadze were influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pisarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. However, Khundadze was mesmerised by the Cubist artist Paul Cézanne and adopted his radical interpretation of perspective, innovative approach to composition and simplified geometrical forms from early on in his artistic career.
Just as Cézanne revisited the landscape of Provence, so too did Khundadze revisit the rocky and mountainous terrain of his homeland. Over the course of his career he transformed Georgia’s rolling mountains and dramatic landscape into highly stylised and abstract forms executed in angular lines using layer upon layer of paint, slowly moving away from realistic depictions. In the present work, the strong and expressive brushstrokes are carefully applied, building up a surface that is both tactile and balanced. His brilliant approach to colour balance is inherent in the swirling reds, yellows and whites coming to the fore like gems on a rich and radiant black ground.
The title Metamorphosis of Pirosmani is a tribute to the revered Georgian primitivist painter, Niko Pirosmani (1862 - 1918), who achieved fame through his naive depictions of Georgians from all social classes and animals. In the present work, Khundadze’s black background is a reference to Pirosmani’s signature style which was the application of paint directly onto a black oilcloth. In Khundadze’s reinterpretation, similar to his mountains, Pirosmani’s figures are morphed into simple and stylised forms, evoking the transience of life and passing of time.
Always filled with affection for his homeland and constantly drawing from his country’s geography, folklore, tradition and culture, Khundadze is a quintessential Georgian artist, inducing a certain nostalgia in anyone who has the fortune to experience his work.