Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tian peasant experience, and the curator admits it's not the best representative of naive art.)
Filling out the room are more of those distinctively spiny, bonsai-like trees that pervade na-
ive works, these by
Ivan Lackovi
ć
Croata.
Notice that Croata's fine works focus on differ-
ent seasons.
But this room's highlight is Ve
č
enaj's
Moses and the Red Sea
(1973), an expressionistic
retelling of the familiar biblical story. Moses, glowing against an inky black sky and with
feet muddy from having just crossed the seabed, watches the sea—literally red with Egyp-
tian blood—washing away his pursuers. The footprints emerging from the sea (at the bot-
tom) suggest that the Israelites' exodus has been a successful one. On the left, see the pyr-
amids (Egypt),andontheright,thecozyvillage (thePromised Land).FlyingaroundMoses
are10birds(representingtheCommandments);he'sequippedwithsomeofhistypicalsym-
bols, including the horn around his neck, the ram, and the snake (which, as the story goes,
he had conjured from a staff to convince the pharaoh to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt).
