“Very simple – I proceeded from the Spaniards to come to Manet, Renoir, Cezanne. I couldn’t restrain from being tempted by Velasquez and Goya to come there …Otherwise, I just satisfied my need to live in a country of sunshine, strong light and warm colours. Used to cold and temperate tones of the mountainous landscape of Slovenia and Croatia, I felt the need for a different atmosphere and I opted for Spain. In the museums of Madrid, I copied for long months the paintings by the great Spanish masters, so very warm in their tones and full of passion.”
Zoran Mušič 1944
Mušič copied The Clothed Maja by Francisco Goya in the Prado the entire month of April and until the 5th of May, 1935. It was one of the few paintings he subsequently brought home, and it was kept in the art collection of the painter’s brother’s family.
He wrote in a letter to Maksim Sedej on May 3, 1935:
“I copy in the Prado every day and, besides, I paint at home at afternoons, because in addition to copies I would like to have some things of my own… Presently I am doing a copy of Maja – clothed; I will finish the painting tomorrow and then I will start to copy one of Greco’s work. Copying is a difficult task indeed – you have almost no freedom (I have tried) and when it is finished you realize there is nothing you can call yours in it. I find extremely strange the paintings I have made – otherwise, I have not stopped to admire Goya, Greco, and Velazquez. There are paintings I could stay hours and hours before them. In some of paintings by Velazquez you can find things you would believe are painted today in Paris, all of Renoir is in them, not to mention Goya in particular. All of these must be personally seen, because a description can tell not even one tenth of this, nor does a reproduction.”
Experts on Mušič’s work agree that his travel to Spain was an important step in his life and creativity. The National Gallery of Slovenia, with its director Ivan Zorman, was the one that recognized Mušič’s talent, and apart from the scholarship granted by the Municipality of Maribor, enabled him to go to study trip to the Iberian Peninsula in March 1935. In the early stages of its development, the Gallery tried to acquire as many copies of painting and statues by renowned artists as possible to provide comparative study material. It was probably the reason why it encouraged the young Mušič to copy famous paintings in Madrid. We know about four copies of pictures he painted in the Prado – Goya: The Clothed Maja, Two Women and a Man, The Inquisition; El Greco: The Resurrection.
Mušič’s study of Francisco Goya exerted strong influence on the treatment of light, on the self-confident treatment of colours in Mušič’s oil paintings and often also on the composition.
His Spanish stay is also known from Mušič’s letters he wrote for the daily newspaper Slovenec, where on the 18th May a few commentaries were also published, which he was forced to listen to while copying Goya’s Maja: “… Do you think Goya’s Majas (pronounced ‘mahas’) would be as popular as they are if a tale did not circulate about them. A tale of how Goya was painting Maja, the wife of a Spanish count. Maja vestida and Maja desnuda. Clothed and naked. Day after day the old story is constantly repeated about Goya, Maja and the Spanish count who did not know that Goya was painting Maja undressed, and one day he announced he would come to see how the work was going on. In the straits and hurry, Goya had to paint another painting – the Clothed Maja. And so on in different versions: about the count, about Maja, about the count again. It is clear the all of this is invented – the fact is that Goya did paint two paintings. Every painting that has gained popularity carries its own story, one that belongs to it as naturally as cracklings belong with potatoes…”