Croatian art of the 20th century
Many strove to bring a native cultural identity into their art, for example themes of national history and legends, and some of the artwork following the First World War contained a strong political message against the ruling Austro-Hungarian state.
In the new Yugoslavia, the socialist realism style never took hold, but bauhaus ideas led to geometric abstraction in paintings and simplified spaces in architecture.
[2] This set the scene in the beginning years of the 20th century, for young Croatian artists studying in Munich and Vienna, bringing back the ideas of the new Secessionist movements.
Their joint identity of style, with concise artistic expression, without literary, historical or moralistic framework, puts them in direct contact with French impressionism, particularly with Manet and Cézanne as role models.
Its aim was not simply to develop a national artistic style, but rather to increase political awareness of the south Slavic identity, and promote the idea of independence from Austria-Hungary.
Rački used the secessionist decorative style in a powerful statement: a soldier stands to attention against an empty grey field, while behind him sways a black and yellow snake (the colours of the Austrian flag).
In Babic's painting, the subject is the funeral of Emperor Francis Joseph portrayed with a large elongated black flag hanging like a guillotine over a company of people dressed in gay, sumptuous colours.
[9] At the first exhibit in the Ulrich Gallery (1916), artists included Ljubo Babić, Jerolim Miše, Tomislav Krizman, Zlatko Šulentić, and sculptors Ferdo Ćus, Hinko Juhn and Joza Turkalj.
The move to flatter forms, in the manner of Cézanne, came in the 1919 Spring Salon exhibition,[10] with the next generation of artists such as the Prague Four (Praška četvorka) Vilko Gecan, Milivoj Uzelac, Marijan Trepše,[11] and Vladimir Varlaj.
[13][14] One of contributors to Zenit was the architect and artist Josip Seissel, who under the pseudonym of Jo Klek is considered to be the first in Croatia (1922) to produce abstract paintings: geometric collages with linguistic motifs and Surrealist compositions.
[citation needed] In the 1950s, Antun Motika generated a strong reaction from the critics with his exhibition of drawings Archaic Surrealism (Arhajski nadrealizam).
[16] The exhibition had a lasting effect on Croatian artistic circles,[17] and is generally considered to be the boldest rejection of the dogmatic frameworks of socialist realism in Croatia.
The group included the painters Krsto Hegedušić, Edo Kovačević, Omer Mujadžić, Kamilo Ružička, Ivan Tabaković, and Oton Postružnik, the sculptors Antun Augustinčić, Frano Kršinić, and the architect Drago Ibler.
Generalić and his friends Franjo Mraz (also a native of Hlebine) and Mirko Virius (from the nearby village of Đelekovec) formed the nucleus of the group.
[23] In 1931, they were invited to exhibit with the Earth group, which brought public recognition[3] and naive art became a popular form of artistic expression in Croatia, making a strong social statement about the harshness of rural life.
In the years immediately following the war, the new communist regime in Yugoslavia brought in the Soviet model of socialist realism and refusal to participate in exhibitions became a popular means of resistance among artists.
[10] EXAT 51 (the name stands for Experimental Atelier) was a group of artists and architects (1951–56) whose program was geometric abstraction in painting, new ways of handling of space in architecture, and the abolition of the distinction between fine and applied arts.
[10] Their ideas owed much to the Russian Constructivist avant-garde and the German Bauhaus experience, and Exat wanted to involve artists in the shaping of the environment with an experimental and creative approach.
It included the painters Josip Vaništa, Julije Knifer, Marijan Jevšovar, Đuro Seder, sculptor Ivan Kožarić, art theoreticians and critics Radoslav Putar, Matko Meštrović, Dimitrije Bašičević (Mangelos), and architect Miljenko Horvat.
[10] The Gorgona publication, and the group's activities raised interest in international art circles - and they had frequent contact with such artists as Dieter Roth, Victor Vasarely, Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, and Robert Rauschenberg.
[29] They were the initiative of art historians and critics Dimitrije Bašičević, Božo Bek, Boris Kelemen, Radoslav Putar, Matko Meštrović and the artists Ivan Picelj, Vjenceslav Richter, Julije Knifer, Aleksandar Srnec, later by a group of younger artists: Juraj Dobrović, Miroslav Šutej, Mladen Galić, Ljerka Šibenik, and Ante Kuduz.
Experiments in visual perception gave a scientific dimension, and by the third exhibition in 1965, artists were examining the relations between cybernetics and art, and events included a symposium on the topic.
[30] Minimal art, Pop-art and the geometric forms of New Tendencies combined in a new generation of artists characterized by the free spirit of 1968 and ideas about changing the world.
[10] Among the artists who made most impression in the "new art practice" with individual exhibitions or group actions and urban interventions were Željko Borčić, Boris Bućan, Vlasta Delimar, Slavomir Drinković, Braco Dimitrijević, Ladislav Galeta, Stanka Gjuric, Tomislav Gotovac, Sanja Iveković, Dean Jokanović, Jagoda Kaloper, Željko Kipke, Dalibor Martinis, Marijan Molnar, Goran Petercol, Ante Rašić, Josip Stošić, Davor Tomičić, Goran Trbuljak, Gorki Žuvela, the Group of Six Artists (Vlado Martek, Željko Jerman, Boris Demur, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović, Fedor Vučemilović), and the Group Flow (Vladimir Gudac, Dubravko Budić, Davor Lončarić, Ivan Šimunović, Gustav Zechel, and Darko Zubčević).
[31] The sculptors of the group used new materials in their work, such as polyester, plastic, jute, aluminum, and glass wool, while the painters engaged with imaginative, expressive, rich colors.
Membership expanded over the years to include Ivan Lesiak, Zlatko Kauzlarić Atač, Rudolf Labaš, Vlado Jakelić, Stanko Jančić, Ratko Janjić-Jobo, Đurđica Zanoški-Gudlin, and Emil Robert Tanay.
The trend became known as New Image (Nova Slika), and it was also evident at the Gallery of Contemporary Art's exhibition of 'Italian Trans-Avantgarde', showing the works of Italian and Yugoslav artists.
Authors such as Edita Schubert, Nina Ivančić, Star Fio, Đuro Seder, Anto Jerković, and Jelena Perić are characterised by a citation ranging from high to mass media culture.
The avant-garde trends of the previous decades were giving way to a reintroduction of more traditional media in a more personal style, but at the same time, there was a more refined sense of conceptualism - leading to more materialized forms.
At the same time Dimitrije Bašičević organized the "Confrontations" exhibition which juxtaposed avant-garde and traditional approaches to art and compared their value and significance.
