This picture by Zoran Music Canale della Giudecca was from his late work that seems very close to us today. In 1980 and 1981 he worked on a series of paintings in Venice of the Giudecca Canal, which is in fact more than a broad
waterway. Zoran Music painted these pictures in his studio near to the Accademia but he drew the sketches that preceded them on the bank of the Zattere, directly opposite the Isola Giudecca. He said of these works: ‘Canale della Giudecca, the lagoon with the industrial buildings of Marghera (in the background). Observed every day from the Zattere – mornings and evenings, on clear days when the lines are clear and rich in contrasts, or on days when haze blurs the outlines. It is an atmosphere that I can still feel within me even far away from Venice. In the studio these drawings reawakened my first sensation.’ In this way, Music was able to create pictures like this one in which reality appears to elude the now septuagenarian painter, and yet in fact was penetrating even deeper, perhaps even more so on days that were hazy and overcast than on clear days. The outlines of all objects have become vague. It is as if thick fog is rolling in – not just haze – and this will not only shroud in mist the vague shape of Giudecca in the background but also the steamer going past between the Zattere and Giudecca. Yet at the same time the freighter seems very close, as if it’s just about to moor at the next vaporetto stop. Zoran Music manages to keep many things ‘up in the air’ – and we don’t know exactly what is reality and what is a hallucination.

Wieland Schmied

Literatur: Zoran Music. Ölbilder. Zeichnung. Aquarelle.Gouachen 1940 - 1990. Ausstellungskatalog Galerie Slama. Kärntner Druckerei. Klagenfurt 1992, vgl. Farbabb. 22.