In his landscapes, Zoran Mušič portrayed the rocky Karstic environment of his native region. He often returned home to the Karst, as well as traveled to Dalmatia, painting the hard, dry soil, the outcrops of rock, and animals, in particular small horses. His barren, reddish-brown and gray images of the Karst depict a landscape that resulted from the dynamic relationship between human and nonhuman stakeholders. What was once a region covered in forests, became gradually depleted due to farming and in particular the intense deforestation during the expansion of the Venetian Republic and Austria-Hungary. Over the past 250 years, the Karstic flora has partly recovered through reforestation, in particular the return of the black hornbeam.
The image of the Karst in Mušič’s painting can be read in the context of the Anthropocene as a landscape that is no longer just a natural space but also an archive of many years of anthropogenic interventions. Commercial caving endangers fragile animal species and cave ecosystems. Karstic bodies of water are especially vulnerable to acid rain and industrial waste due to the slow treatment processes. Climate change and the lack of forest cover are increasing the risk of wildfires, making them ever more frequent and devastating. In such an environmental context, Mušič’s visual construction of the Karst can be understood as an image of a vulnerable and multilayered ecosystem, not only depicting reality, but also actively interpreting the contemporary state as natural. Mušič’s landscape thus brings together a multifaceted temporality, allowing us to explore the intertwining of the past deforestation, present regeneration, and future endangerment.
