DOI Heft:
No. 269 (August 1915)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21213#0219
Studio- Talk
been publicly exhibited chiefly in Vienna at the
periodical exhibitions of the Secession, where,
according to Mr. Seton-Watson’s note prefixed to
the catalogue of the collection at South Kensing-
ton, he held his first collective exhibition in 1910,
though this is not quite accurate, as some two or
years before that a collective exhibition of his
work was held at Spalato, the capital of his native
province of Dalmatia, where a few years earlier he
had, after spending his boyhood as a shepherd,
become apprenticed to a marble worker. Here
again in the autumn of 1908, in company with other
artists of the province, he made his appearance
before his countrymen with a notable group of
works in the first Dalmatian Art Exhibition which
was noticed in these pages shortly afterwards (see
The Studio for March 1909, p. 162), which also is
not mentioned in Mr. Seton-Watson’s sketch of his
career. But it was in the Serbian Pavilion at the
great International Exhibition at Rome four years
ago that the art of Mestrovic, who was then barely
thirty years of age, scored its greatest triumph,
and, as remarked by Vittorio Pica in his com-
prehensive illustrated record of that exhibition
(“L’Arte Mondiale a Roma nel 1911 ”), provided
the public with un frisson nouveau, as Victor Hugo
said of the young Baudelaire.
The collection of MeStrovic’s sculpture at South
Kensington does not of course comprise the whole
oeuvre of the artist, but the works assembled there
represent admirably the diversity of his talent—
and as another Italian critic, Sgr. Mario Lago, has
observed, the art of Mestrovic is remarkable for
its variety. Foremost among them are those
monumental creations inspired by the tragic history
of his race, and his passionate devotion to the
cause which, in common with all the Southern Slavs,
he has at heart—the resurrection of a race which for
centuries has been, and still is to a large extent,
under the domination of Turk, Teuton, or Magyar.
Forbidding as some of these monumental figures
are at first sight, one cannot fail to be impressed
by the pathos which is expressed in them ; and
though in presence of these manifestations of
“ patriotic exaltation,” one is conscious of very
diverse influences affecting this sculptor’s work—
influences which it is not easy to reconcile with
anything essentially Slavonic, and indeed when
not archaic, rather suggest a Teutonic type of
been publicly exhibited chiefly in Vienna at the
periodical exhibitions of the Secession, where,
according to Mr. Seton-Watson’s note prefixed to
the catalogue of the collection at South Kensing-
ton, he held his first collective exhibition in 1910,
though this is not quite accurate, as some two or
years before that a collective exhibition of his
work was held at Spalato, the capital of his native
province of Dalmatia, where a few years earlier he
had, after spending his boyhood as a shepherd,
become apprenticed to a marble worker. Here
again in the autumn of 1908, in company with other
artists of the province, he made his appearance
before his countrymen with a notable group of
works in the first Dalmatian Art Exhibition which
was noticed in these pages shortly afterwards (see
The Studio for March 1909, p. 162), which also is
not mentioned in Mr. Seton-Watson’s sketch of his
career. But it was in the Serbian Pavilion at the
great International Exhibition at Rome four years
ago that the art of Mestrovic, who was then barely
thirty years of age, scored its greatest triumph,
and, as remarked by Vittorio Pica in his com-
prehensive illustrated record of that exhibition
(“L’Arte Mondiale a Roma nel 1911 ”), provided
the public with un frisson nouveau, as Victor Hugo
said of the young Baudelaire.
The collection of MeStrovic’s sculpture at South
Kensington does not of course comprise the whole
oeuvre of the artist, but the works assembled there
represent admirably the diversity of his talent—
and as another Italian critic, Sgr. Mario Lago, has
observed, the art of Mestrovic is remarkable for
its variety. Foremost among them are those
monumental creations inspired by the tragic history
of his race, and his passionate devotion to the
cause which, in common with all the Southern Slavs,
he has at heart—the resurrection of a race which for
centuries has been, and still is to a large extent,
under the domination of Turk, Teuton, or Magyar.
Forbidding as some of these monumental figures
are at first sight, one cannot fail to be impressed
by the pathos which is expressed in them ; and
though in presence of these manifestations of
“ patriotic exaltation,” one is conscious of very
diverse influences affecting this sculptor’s work—
influences which it is not easy to reconcile with
anything essentially Slavonic, and indeed when
not archaic, rather suggest a Teutonic type of