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In Pursuit of National Identity. Croatian Modern Art before and after the Great War

This essay discusses various strategies of Croatian modern art in formulating national identity, with a special emphasis placed on the impact of the Great War. Considering that the main consequence of the Great War on Croatian cultural space was of a geopolitical nature — namely, the creation of a new multinational state within a part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Serbia — the continuity of a close relation between art and national identity was established. Specifically, the building of a stable national culture — which emphasizes national particularities, but also affirms its inclusion in the European cultural space — established itself as an important objective of cultural elites in Croatia in the pre-war, as well as in the post-war, period. First and foremost, this essay emphasizes the importance of the painter Vlaho Bukovac who, by introducing the echoes of French art and the spirit of cosmopolitanism into the traditional cultural surrounding, played a key cohesive role in formulating the secession movement in Croatia. At that decisive moment in the creation of Croatian modern art began a discussion regarding the need to articulate its national features as an important part of national identity. In the years immediately preceding the onset of the First World War, the duality of Croatian art became evident. On one side, there was a group of artists gathered around the sculptor Ivan Meštrović, who sided with the Yugoslav idea as a viable political solution for the Croatian part of the Empire. Accordingly, Meštrović was preoccupied with themes inspired by South Slavic heroic folk poetry ; whereby he was also taking into account the formulation of a national style with South Slavic features. On the other side, there was a group of painters who studied at the Munich Academy and spent time in Paris. They derived their influences from French painting ; whereby their views on art were not in any way related to the postulates of cultural nationalism. One of them — Miroslav Kraljević — would exert a strong influence with his work by introducing the values of cosmopolitanism into the Croatian art scene. With the end of the war begins the process of transforming avant-garde incentives (primarily, expressionism) and the creation of a general artistic atmosphere of moderatemodernism. Given the fact that the Croatian cultural space, upon the end of the Great War, ceased to be part of one multinational state and became part of another, the cultural nationalism remained very much alive in that period. In addition, the dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation in the Yugoslav multinational state had quickly erupted, so Croatian art felt the need to give its response to the emerging social circumstances. The need to emphasize Croatian cultural and artistic distinctiveness was continuously elaborated by Ljubo Babić, one of the most significant artists in the interwar period. The strategy of creating “our expression” was, from the very beginning, a part of his projection on the advancement of national art. Although Babić’s cultural nationalism possessed highly pronounced traditional features, his views were not isolationistic. Having obtained extensive knowledge of European cultural heritage and being aware of transnational values of modern art, he aimed to be a kind of cosmopolite, but at the same time also a nationalist, with a desire to formulate a national style which would affirm the inclusion of Croatian art into modern European culture.

Croatian modern art, national identity, cultural nationalism, Ivan Meštrović, Miroslav Kraljević, Ljubo Babić

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