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Theart of Yugoslavia is thevisual art created by a number of painters, sculptors and graphics artists inYugoslavia.
Visual arts in the territories that later became Yugoslavia were primarily limited to religious arts until the 19th century. At that time Yugoslav art was still attached tobaroque tradition and, along withromanticism inYugoslav literature, secular motives were establishing very slowly. Firstromantic,Biedermeier andclassicist painters were all schooled abroad and painted mostly portraits. At the turn to 20th century with the influence from western metropolessecession came to Slovenia and Croatia.Vlaho Bukovac organized a painters society inZagreb with many exhibitions, while inBelgrade Kirilo Kutlik set up the first school of art in 1895. Secession artistsHinko Smrekar andMaksim Gaspari produced mostly graphics, whileIvan Meštrović became known as a sculptor. A series of sixYugoslav Art Exhibitions were organized between 1904 and 1927, displaying works from many prominent individuals from the region.
With the formation of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and SlovenesAvantgarde took primacy in Yugoslav arts. Modern currents ofexpressionism,cubism andsurrealism emerged with new young artists likePetar Dobrović,Jovan Bijelić,Milo Milunović,Sava Šumanović,Stane Kregar andGojmir Anton Kos. Later, with the political crisis in the 1930s, social themes emerged with critical attitude to old forms.Mirko Kujačić wrote aA Manifesto of Zenitism, whileKrsto Hegedušić founded a radical groupZemlja in Zagreb. In Trieste,constructivism was strong with the Slovenian painterAvgust Černigoj leading the style. Institutionally, Yugoslav art was supported by the newAcademy of Fine Arts at theUniversity of Zagreb and Belgrade School of Painting. Sculpturing was not as developed as painting and it stayed mostly under the old influence ofIvan Meštrović. Other notable sculptor of this era wasAntun Augustinčić.
Not much art was produced during theWorld War II in Yugoslavia, with mostly partisan graphics being preserved.
After the war, old styles and techniques persisted until esthetic utilitarism andsocialist realism were introduced with the new socialist system. While lasting for only a couple of years notable socialist realist artwork and sculptures includeBoža Ilić’s“Exploratory drilling in New Belgrade”,Antun Augustinčić's Batina memorial (1945-1957) and the monument to the fallen soldiers at Iriški Venac bySreten Stojanović in 1951.[1] At the 1952 Ljubljana Congress of theAssociation of Writers of YugoslaviaMiroslav Krleža criticized Soviet realism in painting which he denounced as a revival of bourgeois academic forms.[1]
In 1950s new avantgarde and fantastic elements emerged once again with the esthetics of shock.Socialist Yugoslavia was an important exception among thecommunist countries, because after theTito–Stalin split in 1948, it abandoned socialist realism along with other elements previously imported from the Soviet system and allowed greater artistic freedom.[2] Following the rejection of the Soviet inspired dominance of socialist realism Yugoslav artists enjoyed relatively high levels of artistic autonomy short of freedom to produce blatantly anti-Tito art while at the same time enjoing significant levels of state support.[3] There was no single dominate style with many new institutions and societies being formed in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and other large cities. Tolerance or the outright official support for theabstract art, localBauhaus traditions andRussian constructivism was used for political representation by the regime nurturing an image of Yugoslavia as a modern and independent country.[4]
A special phenomenon, recognized also abroad, was the self-taught naive school inHlebine withIvan Generalić.
On the other side academic approach became prevalent, forming many courses and experimenting with geometry, magic, colors, photographic realism and other elements. The most famous groups wereNew tendency from Zagreb,Group 69 from Ljubljana andDecember from Belgrade. Famous artists of this period includeMiodrag B. Protić,Branko Miljuš,Miljenko Stančić,Vladimir Veličković,Vjenceslav Richter,Ivan Picelj,Miroslav Šutej,Janez Bernik,Jože Ciuha andAdriana Maraž. In 1955 Belgrade basedCvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion hosted the highly anticipated exhibition ofHenry Moore.[1] New tendencies, diverse movement deeply intertwined with western European art, opened its first exhibition in Zagreb on 3 August 1961 with the event and subsequent exhibitions until 1973 emphasising the role ofnew technologies andvideo art,bio-art androbotics while providing particular local twist on the issues of social role of art againstl'art pour l'art tendencies in the west.[4]
Along with painting there was also a huge flourishing of graphics, while sculpture in SFR Yugoslavia was less diversiform and mostly soc-realist, resemblingYugoslav architecture.
