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The essential part of his work does indeed seem to pertain to this mainstream which first flourished immediately after the war in the United States: abstract expressionism and at its most passionate, dynamic and spontaneous. But, with one's eye riveted still and only to that irradiant centre which generated the revival of contemporary art, one forgets (at least in France) that Europe did not wait for the echo of the American shock-wave before joining in the adventure. The pictorial history (as it could already be termed) of the preceding decades, in the infinite network of international art communication, involved similar upheavals in every country that had not cut itself off from the development of painting as it evolved in the 20th century under the influence of two mainstreams which have met more than once before: surrealism and abstract art.
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Roots that plunge into the Croatian soil, in the dark waters of the Adriatic and in the ardent midday sun – all summarized in the word Mediteranean. Sultry joy of the midday sun, this fascinating demon which beckons one out of the shadow. A light exalting colour and avoiding all halfmeasures. A life-force resisting this solar weight, daring even to take part in pagan orgies. All this is foreshadowed in Edo Murtić's most abstract painting and may be seen in the work in which after a twenty year pause, he turned again to figuration. Of this return, felt as inevitable in the course of a sea trip, Edo Murtić stated simply: "I couldn't resist". Yes, it is always the world, always life that calls on painting, the painter being in a sense the one who cannot resist this call or, rather, who is able to answer it. And the painter of Mediterranean essence is he who is forever at grips with the "demon de midi", he who never fears to approach the fire.
Gilles Plazy
Art critic