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Art and Politics in the Modern Period

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Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Zagreb
Art and Politics
in the Modern Period
Conference Proceedings

PUBLISHED BY PROOFREADING
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jeremy F. Walton
University of Zagreb, Croatia
FF-press TECHICAL ASSISTANCE
Patricia Počanić
FOR THE PUBLISHER
Vesna Vlahović-Štetić COVER AND LAYOUT DESIGN
Maja Brodarac
EDITORS
Dragan Damjanović COMPUTER LAYOUT
Lovorka Magaš Bilandžić Marko Maraković
Željka Miklošević Boris Bui
Jeremy F. Walton
EDITION
REVIEWERS 300
Tamara Bjažić Klarin (Zagreb)
Julija Lozzi Barković (Rijeka) PRINTED BY
Matej Klemenčič (Ljubljana) Denona, Zagreb
Lidija Merenik (Belgrade)
Milan Pelc (Zagreb)
Markian Prokopovych (Durham)

ISBN
978-953-175-643-3

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National and University Library in Zagreb under CIP code 001046414.

The book is financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb's Office
for Culture, Art History Department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, The Foundation of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

mpimmg
EDITED BY
Dragan Damjanović
Lovorka Magaš Bilandžić
Željka Miklošević
Jeremy F. Walton

Zagreb, 2019
 7 Introduction: Intersections of Art and Politics
15 Portraits of Artists as Political Subjects and Actors
17 Angelina Milosavljevic-Ault
AN ARTIST IN AND OUT OF THE SYSTEM IN EARLY MODERN FLORENCE. SOCIAL CONTEXT
AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF YOUNG GIORGIO
VASARI AS REFLECTED IN HIS LETTERS OF 1534 AND 1536
25 Vladimir Peter Goss
RESURRECTIO MEMORIAE – THE CASE OF JOSEF STRZYGOWSKI
33 Elizabeth Kajs
THE ORIGINS OF AN IDENTITY: KÄTHE KOLLWITZ’S EARLY EXPLORATIONS
OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
41 Daniel Zec
OSCAR NEMON’S SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL ETHICS
53 Maria de Fátima Morethy Couto
KINETICS, DESPITE IT ALL: SOUTH AMERICAN ARTISTS IN EUROPE
AND SPECTATOR PARTICIPATION
63 Martina Bratić
SHOULD ENGAGED ART RE-ENGAGE? SOME PERSPECTIVES OF YAEL BARTANA’S WORKS

73 Spaces of Political-Artistic Representation

75 Hadrien Volle
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE DECORATIVE PROGRAMME OF THE FAUBOURG
SAINT-GERMAIN THEATRE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
83 Katarina Mohar
ART REPRESENTING THE STATE: THE VILLA BLED OFFICIAL RESIDENCE
93 Tijana Borić
A MANIFESTO OF POWER AND RESTORED STATEHOOD: KARAĐORĐE’S TOWN OF TOPOLA
101 Sanja Zadro
TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RONDO SQUARE IN MOSTAR IN THE FIRST HALF
OF THE 20TH CENTURY

109 Representing Politics

111 Danko Šourek
ICONOGRAPHY OF THE SACRED STAGE: SCENOGRAPHY FOR THE CANONICAL
CORONATION OF OUR LADY OF TRSAT (1715)
119 Aleksandra Kučeković
ART, POLITICS AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY – COATS OF ARMS OF THE PAKRAC SLAVONIAN
BISHOPRIC IN THE 18TH CENTURY
129 Tiphaine Gaumy
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF POPULAR REVOLTS IN MODERN EUROPE (14TH – 18TH CENTURIES):
IMAGES AND AUTHORITIES
139 Jovana D. Milovanović
THE MILLENNIUM CELEBRATIONS OF 1896 AND THE CITY OF RIJEKA:
ON ANDOR DUDITS’ PAINTING THE CEREMONIAL PROCLAMATION OF THE
ANNEXATION OF RIJEKA TO HUNGARY IN 1779
147 Igor Borozan
BETWEEN THE ARTS AND POLITICS: RITUAL CRADLE DONATION AND
THE CASE OF THE FALSE PREGNANCY OF QUEEN DRAGA OBRENOVIĆ
157 Frano Dulibić
IDEOLOGIES, CARTOONS AND COMIC STRIPS DURING WORLD WAR II IN CROATIA
171 Ana Munk
IDOLATRY: REFLECTIONS ON VISUAL PERMISSION AND PROHIBITION
IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY
183 The Politics of Patronage, Provenance, and Curation
185 Sanja Cvetnić
THE FRANKAPAN FAMILY AND THE POLITICAL ICONOGRAPHY OF EARLY MODERN
AND MODERN CROATIA
193 Marjeta Ciglenečki
THE DIPLOMATIC GIFT OF A PAINTING AND ITS COPY IN THE PTUJ CASTLE GALLERY
201 Ljerka Dulibić, Iva Pasini Tržec
THE LONG LIVES OF TRANSFERRED MUSEUM OBJECTS: THE EXCHANGE OF
PAINTINGS FROM THE STROSSMAYER GALLERY (ZAGREB) FOR THE BAPTISMAL FONT
FROM THE MUSEO CORRER (VENICE) IN 1942
213 Katja Mahnič
JOSIP MANTUANI ON THE ROLE OF ART COLLECTION WITHIN THE MODERN MUSEUM
221 Jasminka Najcer Sabljak, Silvija Lučevnjak
STATE AUTHORITIES AND THE HERITAGE OF NOBLE FAMILIES OF EASTERN CROATIA

231 Art, Nations, Nationalism

233 Marina Bregovac Pisk
COLLECTING PAINTINGS, PRINTS AND SCULPTURES IN A NATIONAL MUSEUM FROM
THE 19TH TO THE 21ST CENTURY
243 Sandi Bulimbašić
THE MEDULIĆ ASSOCIATION OF CROATIAN ARTISTS IN THE CONTEXT OF CENTRAL
EUROPEAN ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS: THE MYTH AND THE NATION
255 Iva Prosoli
FROM HEIMATKUNST TO THE ZAGREB SCHOOL (AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE NATIONAL
IDENTITY THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY)
263 Nikki Petroni
SUBVERTING THE CANON: A RETHINKING OF THE PLACE OF TRADITION IN
PERIPHERAL MODERN ART. THE CASE OF MALTA
271 Ana Šeparović
CROATIAN PAINTING AND ART CRITICISM IN THE PERIOD OF SOCIALIST REALISM
(1945–1950): THEORY VS. PRACTICE
281 Aldona Tołysz
BETWEEN FREEDOM AND POLICY: THE POLISH ART SCENE IN THE COMMUNIST
PERIOD BETWEEN 1945 AND 1965

291 Political Architecture/The Politics of Architecture

293 Cosmin Minea
FOREIGN AND LOCAL ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE CREATION OF ROMANIAN
ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY
303 Franko Ćorić
PROTECTION AND RESTORATION OF HISTORIC MONUMENTS AS A CULTURAL
POLICY OF THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY
313 Aleksander Łupienko
ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING IN SERVICE OF POLITICS: NEOCLASSICISM
AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF CITIES IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND
325 Michał Pszczółkowski
ARCHITECTURE AS A TOOL OF TRANSCULTURATION IN POLISH LANDS DURING THE
PARTITIONS
335 Dragan Damjanović
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN DUALISM AND CROATIAN 19TH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE –
POLITICS AND DESIGN

349 List of authors

 in the Modern Period

Dragan
Damjanović

Lovorka
Magaš
Bilandžić

Željka
Miklošević INTRODUCTION:
Jeremy F. INTERSECTIONS OF ART
Walton AND POLITICS

F
rom the Bamiyan Buddhas to Christoph Büchel’s Barca Nostra, from “Rhodes Must
Fall” to Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War, both the politics of art and artistic reflec-
7
tions on politics have becoming strikingly public in recent years. This is no surprise
– in the age of mass culture, images and representations of politics are inseparable from
political life itself. However, complex, multifaceted interactions between art and politics
are certainly not new. Our aspiration in this volume is to explore the genealogy of this re-
lationship in modern Europe broadly construed. Although scholarly interrogations of art
and politics should not be limited to this era and geography, many fundamental features
of the relationship between the political and the artistic took shape in conjunction with
European modernity.
This volume compiles a selection of papers that were originally presented at the inter-
national conference, Art and Politics in Europe in the Modern Period, held at the Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb from June 29 to July 2, 2016.
The conference was attended by 85 presenters from countries including, but not limited to
Croatia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Slovenia,
Serbia, Romania, Malta, Czech Republic, Latvia, Italy, Spain, and Poland. Our scope was
intentionally broad – the papers covered topics from various fields of art history, museol-
ogy, history and cultural anthropology.
The main aim of the conference, and therefore of this volume as well, was to establish a
comprehensive perspective on the intricate relationships between art and political regimes
as seen from various vantages and based on different discourses (governmental, social,
economic, religious, gender, ethnic and the like) in the period from the 15th century until
the present. The modern period was chosen as a topic because it is characterized by excep-
tional changes in the position and status of art and artists in Europe, with the formulation
of the concept of artistic genius and a new division of labour that separated artists from
artisans. For perhaps the first time in history, those dealing with art were looked upon as
individuals possessing an extraordinary talent that transcended mere skill.
Regardless of this new ideology of individual genius, the articles that follow demonstrate
that artists did not suddenly become autonomous. Although no longer dependent upon
brotherhoods and guilds, artistic practice was nevertheless tied to a wider social and his-
torical context that conditioned the creation, meaning and perception of works of art. Of
 Art and Politics

course, political circumstances have always influenced artistic production to a greater or

lesser extent. However, in the modern period, increased significance was given to political
bodies and legislative frameworks, which introduced changes to social structures and there-
by created the need for artists to adapt to new situations. In addition to the aristocracy and
the church(es) (which remained influential until the end of the 19th century, or even longer,
depending on the country), newly formed bourgeoisie, various political elites, and political
bodies on imperial, national and local levels gradually assumed an important role as inves-
tors in architectural projects or patrons of artists and artworks in general. By stimulating
and influencing cultural transfers, new political actors and institutions also greatly influ-
enced the shaping of cultural circles in European countries. Changes of political borders,
social systems, wars and economic instability were (and still are) continuously mirrored in
the production of art, both formally and conceptually.
Consequently, the main objective of this volume is to assemble articles that exemplify how
research in multiple fields can illuminate the myriad relationships between politics and art.
Art created in the context of European political formations, as well as the art that criticized
dominant regimes and ruling political elites, is analysed as having multiple culturally and
socially relevant voices from the perspective of both the past and the present. The changing
nature of research on material culture, from observing it as “reflection” to understanding it
as “construction” of cultural and social reality, orients all of the articles and inspires their
approach to art. Equally important are those institutional practices that, in addition to sci-
entific discourses, maintain cultural memory or function as instruments of cultural amnesia
or destruction (the so called damnatio memoriae), that is, deliberate and conscious empha-
sis on certain aspects of (politically suitable) heritage. What makes this collection particu-
8 larly valuable is its multiplicity of contemporary methodological approaches, clearly evident
in the texts that follow, as well as the fact that the essays cover topics from many European
countries and touch on all the visual arts, as well as issues of conservation and curatorship.
It might be claimed that it is no coincidence that such a project and volume have come
about in a place still struggling with the spirits of its past. Croatia is a country where raising
new public monuments, mostly to prominent figures from recent history, and the remov-
al of others from a somewhat earlier past, forms part of everyday life. It is also a country
where there is much debate about furnishing the presidential residence with works of art,
and where singers with nationalistic tendencies use pseudohistoric iconography in their
videos and at concerts. However, these debates and dilemmas are hardly unique to Croatia
– almost every country in the world wrestles in one way or another with the past and its
legacies, especially in the field of visual arts. Think, for example, of recent developments
surrounding the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States or of the ideologi-
cal debate surrounding the rebuilding of Altstädte, the historic centres of German cities that
were destroyed in World War II. Clearly, art and politics are increasingly intertwined across
the globe, one key reason that this volume aspires to attract attention from researchers in
all parts of the world.
Culture and the arts, along with all other “national treasures”, are understood here as an
important medium for transmitting the messages of authorities to the general population.
In doing so, these messages should not be understood solely as something bad, as a means of
national homogenization, mobilization or legitimization of goals in the present. As some of
the texts in this publication show, the state’s interest in establishing national heritage allows
the state to preserve and create institutions that coordinate and disseminate information
about art to the general public.
Simultaneously, many of our authors remain committed to a more Foucauldian under-
standing of the constitutive relationship between knowledge and power. The modern period
has arguably witnessed the most dramatic, rapid political transformations in human history,
including the decline of a variety of traditional absolutisms, the rise and fall of colonial
empires, and the ascendance of mass politics in the forms of nationalism, communism,
 Art and Politics

and liberal democracy. As political power has changed, so too has knowledge, including
the knowledge embodied in the arts. A great number of our contributors bear witness to
the novel, multiple forms of knowledge/power that art in the modern era registers and
expresses.
The volume is thematically divided into six sections containing a total of 33 texts.

PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS AS POLITICAL SUBJECTS AND ACTORS

T
he individual positions of artists and art historians working in different political
systems are at the centre of the volume’s first section, Portraits of Artists as Polit-
ical Subjects and Actors. Here, the concept pars pro toto reflects the intertwined
connection of the private and the public, the complex relation of the individual toward
their time and its dominant ideologies, or their active role in popularizing utopian ideas
or criticizing current politics.
The position of an artist in the 16th-centry Florence and his relationships with key art pa-
trons is discussed in Angelina Milosavljevic-Ault’s essay, which focuses on the strategies
used by Giorgio Vasari in his endeavours to establish himself as the Medici court painter.
Vladimir Peter Goss analyses the damnatio memoriae in relation to Josef Strzygowsky,
an Austrian art historian who was long marginalized due to his anti-elitist and anti-im-
perialist attitudes, his confrontations with the Western scholarly establishment and his
political stance. By addressing the erasure of memory in the case of Strzygowsky, who was
interested in art outside of the Western canon, Goss stresses the need to “establish a more
balanced and all-inclusive view of European and world culture.”
Focusing on the selection of self-portraits by the German artist Käthe Kollwitz, Elisa- 9
beth Kajs analyses Kollwitz’s various identities – as a woman, mother, artist and a political
subject. With reference to Kollwitz’s affirmation as a modern female citizen, she discusses
the complex role of private and public and the issue of gender in the artist’s oeuvre.
In his essay, Daniel Zec discusses the theoretical work of Croatian-British sculptor Oscar
Nemon, who in the 1930s realized an utopian conceptual project, the System of Universal
Ethics, based on the ideals of humanism, pacifism and cosmopolitanism. The author analy-
ses the foundations of Nemon’s ideas based on Jewish ethics and philosophy and interprets
them in relation to the European political situation at the time, marked by national and
racist ideologies. He also considers the System of Universal Ethics in the context of similar
utopian projects by other European artists.
The transformed role of an artist and the redefined position of the spectator occupy
Maria de Fátima Morethy Couto, who traces the European reception of the work of three
South American artists, Jesús Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc and Lygia Clark, and their contri-
bution to Kinetic Art and the vital artistic currents of the 1960s.
Finally, the question of the socially active position of an artist is discussed in Martina
Bratić’s essay, which is dedicated to the work of contemporary Israeli artist Yael Bartana.
Bratić analyses Bartana’s socially engaged video works dedicated to the issues of identity,
homeland, memory and social inclusion/exclusion in order to consider the role of an artist
in present-day European society and the (co)relation between art and activism.

SPACES OF POLITICAL-ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION

S
paces intended to be used for public purposes and for the benefit of the public, even
when they are exclusionary, often embody the political representations of one or
more regimes. Individual buildings and the built environment can be infused with
messages of power at several stages of their construction. Artists and architects have played
an important role in providing visual arguments and justifications for various forms of po-
litical power. In other words, artistic and architectural idioms often serve to communicate
political messages, reflecting the ideology of rulers or state authorities.
 Art and Politics

Public spaces exemplify the different ways that politics can be aesthetically represented
through materialized symbols in both exterior and interior space. Certain forms of build-
ings and urban layout reveal complex metaphorical relations to ideas of nation, power,
dominance, victory and the like. The essays in this section present the works of artists and
architects who laboured in the service of authorities that commissioned designs for build-
ings or urban districts. Their commissions can be interpreted as efforts to inhabit public
spaces with symbols of power. Based on primary historical research, the essays also show
that assigning meanings to elements within the urban fabric is a social process that can
change over time, even though at certain periods such meanings might appear to be rel-
atively fixed. Consequently, these spaces can emerge as places of competing narratives for
multiple social groups, their histories, values and identities.
In his essay, Hadrien Volle discusses the ways in which the architecture and decoration
of a public theatre came to shape contrasting narratives of two regimes and the dominance
of one over the other in the specific socio-political circumstances in post-revolutionary
France. Volle delves into both surviving visual material and several modification campaigns
that targeted the theatre immediately following the revolution.
Katarina Mohar’s contribution also focuses on a single building and its architectural and
artistic language, which aimed to promote a newly established socialist regime and commu-
nist ideology. The location of the building, Villa Bled, together with its carefully conceived
artistic program (as well as its occupant, Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito), was intricately
related to the state’s political, social and economic agenda and the construction of its image
in the contemporary world. Mohar gives a detailed account of the villa’s construction, polit-
ical meanings and the implications of the art that inhabited it.
10 In her essay, Tijana Borić emphasizes the representational role of architecture and ur-
ban planning in Topola, a small town in the central part of Serbia that was established and
shaped as the capital of the emancipated Serbian state in the early 19th century. Topola’s
main inhabitant, Karađorđe, was considered to be the father of the Serbian nation. Borić
interprets Topola’s architectural and town planning program in light of its contribution to
both the construction of a Western European-based social hierarchy and the dominant role
of the ruler.
Sanja Zadro’s essay deals with the development of Rondo Square in the Bosnian-Herze-
govinian city of Mostar between the late 19th and the late 20th century. She identifies several
different periods of urban change in Mostar, each bearing a specific relationship to the period
and the state regime. The most significant period was that of Austro-Hungarian rule, during
which the city went through considerable changes that affected different spheres of urban life.

REPRESENTING POLITICS

O
ur third section, Representing Politics, contains five articles that discuss the var-
ious ways political messages were presented in the arts from the 14th to the end of
the 19th century. In this context, artworks can be considered “representational” in
two distinct senses. Art often acts as a representative for political projects and interest in an
explicit sense, but works of art can also function as representations of political power and
its presuppositions in less explicit, instrumental ways.
Danko Šourek’s article focuses on the iconographic program of the crowning ceremony
of Our Lady of Trsat (1715), an icon from the Franciscan monastery located above the Cro-
atian port city of Rijeka. In his interpretation, Šourek elucidates how the icon glorifies and
projects loyalty to the ruling Habsburg House.
Aleksandra Kučeković offers a broadly similiar analysis of the emergence of heraldic
symbols in the art of the Orthodox Diocese of Pakrac, which covered the eastern parts of
Croatia and the western parts of Slavonia during the Habsburg era. She interprets these
symbols as expressions of the aspiration to preserve the special position of the Orthodox
Church in the Habsburg Monarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, as demonstrations
 Art and Politics

of allegiance to the state, especially in the aftermath of Joseph II’s reforms, which improved
the status of the Orthodox Church in the empire.
The third contribution to this section by Tiphaine Gaumy directs attention to images of
insurgency, rather than those of fealty and loyalty. She discusses works depicting upris-
ings in Europe between the 14th and the 18th centuries in order to explore the ways in which
rebellious masses were portrayed, either by their leaders or by the state bodies that sought
to suppress these revolts.
The section’s next two texts cover developments in fin de siècle Central Europe. Jovana D.
Milovanović’s article focuses on the content and message of Andor Dudits’s painting, The
Ceremonial Proclamation of the Annexation of Rijeka to Hungary in 1779 for the Millennium
Exhibition in Budapest, which celebrated Rijeka’s affiliation with Hungary. She interprets
the late-18th-century event portrayed in the painting as representing political aspirations
that marked the end of the 19th century.
Igor Borozan’s article deals with the most bizarre topic of our collection, the ritual do-
nation of cradles during the false pregnancy of the Serbian Queen Draga Obrenović. After
outlining basic information from the life of the last Serbian queen from the Obrenović dy-
nasty, who, along with her husband King Alexander, was killed in the 1903 coup, Borozan
analyses the ceremonies that were organized for the donation of cradles and the ways in
which they were visualized, as well as the portrayal of Queen Draga in portraits and other
media that imagined her future role as a mother.
Frano Dulibić’s essay gives an analysis of cartoons and comic books published between
1941 and 1945 in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a Nazi puppet regime. The fo-
cus is placed exclusively on the visual material published in magazines, which were strictly
controlled by the NDH propaganda machinery. The analysis shows that most caricatures 11

were of relatively low quality and that many cartoonists dealt with topics from everyday
life. Comic books also feature similar images, intended to serve as distraction from the
difficult war situation. However, they also contained anti-Semitic topics as well as derisive
representations of the Allies.
In her contribution, Ana Munk draws a broad contrast between the ideologies and sen-
sitivities to pictorial representation in Christianity and Islam in order to illuminate recent
acts of iconophobia on the part of certain Muslim groups. Without ignoring the multiple
histories of each religion, Munk draws attention to the divergent ways in which Christians
and Muslims have confronted, contributed to, and negotiated modernist imperatives con-
cerning art and images.

THE POLITICS OF PATRONAGE, PROVENANCE, AND CURATION

P
atronage has always played a significant role in the production of art, and patrons
have been known to use art to construct social or political images of themselves.
This has been especially true for higher social classes, in particular aristocratic fam-
ilies, who had the means to commission artworks. Today, the arts and crafts that once
filled the living spaces of noble families constitute a valuable stock of artistic heritage, of-
ten safeguarded in museums and museum-like institutions. Such collections tell and retell
stories about their past patrons and enable different forms of memory to emerge, or even
to become dominant.
As a museum and gallery practice – especially when publicly funded – curation involves
making value judgments about what to include in a collection and how to present it in the
public sphere. This makes the work of museums laden with cultural, social and political impli-
cations, which are especially revealed through provenance research. Such research often high-
lights dissonance, or the competing or opposing meanings of heritage in different periods.
The essays in this section this reveal the processes and circumstances under which dif-
ferent forms and sites of art acquire and change significance over time and depending on
different regimes of memory, frequently managed by socio-political forces.
 Art and Politics

Sanja Cvetnić’s essay focuses on important Croatian cultural and historical personalities
and the ways in which they have been positioned within memory work. She shows how
works of art and historical documents have functioned as vehicles for cultural memory of
the Frankapan family in different periods, from the late 17th century to the present. By doing
so, she stresses the need to supplement existing narratives with new ones that would show
the family as valuable patrons of cultural and religious institutions and publications.
The social role of art is also at the centre of the paper by Marjeta Ciglenečki. She outlines
the genesis of a series of copies of a ceiling painting by Andrea Sacchi, with a focus on the
version of this painting in a castle in the Slovenian city of Ptuj. By doing so, she sheds light
on the transfer of images from Italy to Bohemia to Slovenia. Copies were used to furnish
castles of aristocrats and served to legitimize their elevated cultural status within the social
milieu of other aristocrats and church dignitaries.
In their essay, Ljerka Dulibić and Iva Pasini Tržec offer a detailed account of restitu-
tion negotiations that occurred between Italy and the Nazi-supported Independent State of
Croatia during World War II. The focus of the trade, the baptismal font of Duke Višeslav,
is discussed as a central source for the narratives that were used to legitimize the Croatian
nation, its origins and traditions.
In her essay, Katja Mahnič gives a detailed account of the efforts of a museum director to in-
clude art into collections and on display at a local history museum in Slovenia following World
War I. The director’s view of the museum’s art collection was based on his ability to provide an
insight into a history of artistic development, while at art exhibitions, items from the collection
could be enjoyed individually by visitors and serve as a means of their enculturation.
Finally, Jasminka Najcer Sabljak and Silvija Lučevnjak delineate the historical path of
12 art objects from the estates of Slavonian noble families that found their final home in local
history and art museums. Their article illuminates the various attitudes to this heritage in
different periods of Croatian history and the measures taken to safeguard this heritage, re-
move it from the eyes of the public or bring it back to public attention.

ART, NATION, NATIONALISM

T
he multifaceted role of art in the formation and affirmation of national identity and
nationalist political system(s) is in the focus of the section Art, Nation, National-
ism. The authors represented here discuss artistic production and the activities of
artist associations, museums and individuals in relation to the nation and its constituent
ideologies.
Questions surrounding the selection of artworks and the criteria for the formation of a
national history museum collection are at the core of Marina Bregovac Pisk’s essay, which
offers an overview of the dynamics of purchasing paintings, prints and sculptures for the
present-day Croatian History Museum. She shows that, regardless of the turbulent histo-
ry of shifting political systems from the mid-19th century to the present, the selection of
artworks was based primarily on their symbolic value, which stressed the role of depicted
persons and events for Croatian political, social and cultural history, while artistic criteria
were of secondary importance.
The role of artists’ associations in the organization of artistic life and the popularization
of national identity in Central Europe in the first two decades of the 20th century is the topic
of Sandi Bulimbašić’s paper. She focuses on the Medulić Association of Croatian Artists
and Ivan Meštrović’s Vidovdan cycle as an epitome of nationalist pictorial representation.
Bulimbašić also contextualizes the association’s work in relation to similar Central Europe-
an societies (Sztuka, Mánes etc.) in order to ponder the multi-layered aspects of modern art
in the formation of a national style and its role in the affirmation of national identity “as a
united combination of historical experience and contemporary aspirations.”
In her essay, Iva Prosoli considers the use of photography in the formation of a national
style and deconstructs the concept of the so-called Zagreb school of photography. On the
 Art and Politics

basis of several texts and selected photographs, she examines the manipulative potential of
the medium as a propaganda tool and shows how one image can be used in various political
systems serving different agendas.
Nikki Petroni’s intervention advocates broadening the interpretation of Maltese national
art in order to surpass the limitations of discourse on Maltese modernism and to recon-
struct its position within the national and Western canons. In particular, Petroni elaborates
the work of several protagonists of Maltese 20th-century art who challenged the country’s
artistic tradition, based on sacred themes and the dominance of the baroque style.
In her article, Ana Šeparović examines the complex and changing relations between art
production and art criticism in period of Socialist Realism in Croatia during the first years
after World War II. She analyses the multifaceted role of both mediums in the transfer of so-
cialist and communist ideology. With an emphasis on the thematic prominence of the war in
Socialist Realism, Šeparović examines conflicts between theory and practice by showing the
discrepancy between visual models appreciated by critics, which favoured a heroic concep-
tion of the subject, and realized artworks based on the foundations of Modernist aesthetics.
The position of the arts in the communist period is also at the centre of Aldona Tołysz’s
paper. She analyses the transformation of the Polish post-WWII art scene with the advent
of political changes and the so-called explosion of modernity. With reference to the work
of some of the leading avant-garde artists of the period, Tołysz considers the various plat-
forms of the art system (exhibitions, meetings etc.) and interprets the changing relationship
between art and official policy.

POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE/THE POLITICS OF ARCHITECTURE

T
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he volume’s final section, titled Political Architecture/The Politics of Architecture,
includes essays dealing with the influence of political circumstances on architectur-
al production, especially in the field of public architecture. By coincidence, all the
works in this section refer to the history of architecture of the so-called long 19th century,
that is, the period from the end of the 18th century to 1918 in Central and Southeastern Eu-
rope, in the territories that formed parts of the Habsburg, German, Russian and Ottoman
Empires. As imperial power waxed and waned in relation to emergent nationalisms, archi-
tectural practice registered new ideological imperatives and presuppositions.
Cosmina Minea’s contribution examines the contrasts and similarities in approaches to
writing about key Romanian architectural national monuments by French and German art-
ists and scholars, on one hand, and by their Romanian counterparts, on the other. Minea
shows that these texts and the research that informed them strongly influenced how monu-
ments were restored at the end of the 19th century.
State-sponsored monument restoration is also addressed by Franko Ćorić in his essay,
which focuses on the region of Dalmatia and the role played by the cultural policy of the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in monument preservation. Ćorić details the situation during
the early 20th century, when key representatives of the Vienna School of Art History in-
cluding Alois Riegl and Max Dvořak, as well as Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself, paid
increasing attention to Dalmatian monuments.
The following two contributions both address circumstances in the Polish countries in
the 19th century. Aleksander Łupienko focuses on the late 18th and first half of the 19th
century and the ways in which neoclassicism as a style was used for public buildings, first
in the Polish Commonwealth before the partition of the country, and then in the Kingdom
of Poland, a semi-autonomous province within the Russian Empire that was created at the
1815 Congress in Vienna.
Michał Pszczółkowski, in turn, deals with approximately the same area, but half a cen-
tury later, during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. He explores
the architectural languages that were promoted by Prussia (later the German Empire) and
Russia, the two states that ruled over the Polish territory. Pszczółkowski also clearly points
 Art and Politics

to architectural differences between the two territories, which arose from the unequal eco-
nomic situations of the German and Russian Empires.
Finally, Dragan Damjanović’s article, which closes the section and the volume, discuss-
es ways in which state laws related to Croatia’s position as a semi-autonomous unit in the
Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy influenced architecture in this country,
from the Croato-Hungarian settlement of 1868 up to the year 1918. He analyses the impact
of the Croatian government’s financial capabilities on architecture, as well as the influence
of the central government in Budapest. ­

We owe a special thanks to the following institutions that financially supported this publi-
cation: the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb,
the Max Planck Research Group “Empires of Memory: The Cultural Politics of Historicity
in Former Habsburg and Ottoman Cities”, the Department of Art History of the Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and the Foundation of the Croatian
Academy of Sciences and Arts. We would also like to thank all of the institutions that have
made their visual material available and the authors for their cooperation and trust. Special
thanks are due, finally, to the reviewers, Markian Prokopovych, Matej Klemenčič, Julija
Lozzi Barković, Lidija Merenik, Tamara Bjažić Klarin and Milan Pelc for their suggestions
to the authors, which contributed immensely to the quality of the essays.
The conference, and therefore this book of proceedings, were prepared as part of the proj-
ect Croatia and Central Europe: Art and Politics in the Late Modern Period (1780–1945),
funded by the Croatian Science Foundation between 2014 and 2017.

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