DOI article:
Mance, Ivana: Towards the theory of the naïve art - Grgo Gamulin and the understanding of modernism
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52521#0197
Ivana Mance
TOWARDS THE THEORY OF THE NAÏVE ART -
GRGO GAMULIN AND THE UNDERSTANDING
OF MODERNISM
Grgo Gamulin (1910—1997), art historian, critic and author, was one of
the central figures not only of Croatian art history in socialist Yugoslavia, but
of its culture and public social life as well. While still a student at the Uni-
versity of Zagreb, he began to gravitate towards left-wing politics, publishing
his first art critiques, in which he advocated for socially engaged art. Being
a member of the Communist Party public action became almost impossible
between 1934 and 1941, while his war years were spent in Ustasha concen-
tration camps. After the war, he began his public and university career as the
head of the Ministry of Education's Department for Culture in Croatia's post-
war government, and from 1947 he was employed at the Faculty of Human-
ities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, where he took over the
organisation of art history classes. Until 1971, when he was forced to retire
for being a prominent member of the Croatian Spring movement, Gamulin
taught classes in art history of the Early Modern Period and the Modern Age,
remaining active as a scientist, art critic and author even after retirement. Af-
ter gaining a PhD on the attribution methods in visual arts (1951), his scien-
tific work was primarily dedicated to the painting of late-Gothic period up to
the 19th century, modernist painting and sculpture, and the issues of contem-
porary urbanism. In all these areas, Gamulin cultivated theoretically sound
and methodologically consistent thought, writing fundamental studies and
syntheses. Continuously present as an art critic and an interested witness to
the art of the 20th century, Grgo Gamulin was one of the main interpreters
of modernism and modernist artistic phenomena in the context of Yugoslav
socialism, which he both criticised and defended polemically, in accordance
with his convictions, but also as part of his wide, outstandingly informed
interest and human sensibility. The published works and manuscript lega-
cy of Grgo Gamulin still represents one of the numerically largest corpora of
Croatian art history.
TOWARDS THE THEORY OF THE NAÏVE ART -
GRGO GAMULIN AND THE UNDERSTANDING
OF MODERNISM
Grgo Gamulin (1910—1997), art historian, critic and author, was one of
the central figures not only of Croatian art history in socialist Yugoslavia, but
of its culture and public social life as well. While still a student at the Uni-
versity of Zagreb, he began to gravitate towards left-wing politics, publishing
his first art critiques, in which he advocated for socially engaged art. Being
a member of the Communist Party public action became almost impossible
between 1934 and 1941, while his war years were spent in Ustasha concen-
tration camps. After the war, he began his public and university career as the
head of the Ministry of Education's Department for Culture in Croatia's post-
war government, and from 1947 he was employed at the Faculty of Human-
ities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, where he took over the
organisation of art history classes. Until 1971, when he was forced to retire
for being a prominent member of the Croatian Spring movement, Gamulin
taught classes in art history of the Early Modern Period and the Modern Age,
remaining active as a scientist, art critic and author even after retirement. Af-
ter gaining a PhD on the attribution methods in visual arts (1951), his scien-
tific work was primarily dedicated to the painting of late-Gothic period up to
the 19th century, modernist painting and sculpture, and the issues of contem-
porary urbanism. In all these areas, Gamulin cultivated theoretically sound
and methodologically consistent thought, writing fundamental studies and
syntheses. Continuously present as an art critic and an interested witness to
the art of the 20th century, Grgo Gamulin was one of the main interpreters
of modernism and modernist artistic phenomena in the context of Yugoslav
socialism, which he both criticised and defended polemically, in accordance
with his convictions, but also as part of his wide, outstandingly informed
interest and human sensibility. The published works and manuscript lega-
cy of Grgo Gamulin still represents one of the numerically largest corpora of
Croatian art history.