It is natural that Murtić concentrated on abstract expression. We can feel that his canvases are strong and resolute. The artist simply could not have created them any other way. All the energy is as much in the substance as it is in the movement. We seem to be immersed in a charcoal-like world, in the inaudible toil from the coal mining time. However, colour also plays its role. It glorifies the beauty of ruby red, it expresses the glow of yellow, and it spreads the magnificence and lusciousness of blue. The artist works in black, he is the creator and the main initiator of the blackness, the blackness he is obsessed with and that is created by his subversive realm. Murtić is also a colourist.
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He therefore devotes himself to his art with all his profuse skill. He models, mixes, builds his powerful shadows, imposes an apparent diversity on them, manages to create a well-developed epic out of every single one of them, while at the same time leaving room for his physiognomy, his persistent, hard, and indisputable expression.
JEAN CASSOU,
Director of the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris