Original scientific paper

The Extraterrestrial From Bale And The Beginnings Of Croatian Art

Vladimir Peter Goss ; Sveučilište u Rijeci, Rijeka, Hrvatska
Nikolina Belošević ; Odsjek za Povijest umjetnosti Filozofskog fakulteta u Rijeci, Hrvatska

Abstract

In his remarkable book Naša stara vjera/Our Ancient Faith Radoslav Katičić has highlighted the phenomenon of religious plurality among the Slavs. Belonging to more than one religious tradition implies also belonging to more than one cultural circle. In their new country, after the migration, the Croats encountered a conglomerate of local Antique traditions, to which they contributed their own tradition of prehistoric non-urban world – of the Illyrians, Celts, Langobards, and of the Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and provincial Carolingian art.
A typical representative of such art is a frontal figure with a round head, and widely spread arms and legs, such as we encounter in prehistoric and non-historic art all around the world (e. g. , Petrified Forest in Arizona/prehistoric of uncertain date). Exactly the same figure has been drawn in thick lines of dark color on the main pier of the port of Rijeka between February 22 and March 22, as testified by the authors of this article themselves. A very similar figure in stone relief from Bale in Istria can be dated to the 11th century. This example clearly indicates the survival of pre- and non-historic tradition in the art of Croatian space throughout today.
Presenting the old Slavic religion as a legitimate phenomenon parallel to Christianity as something which keeps the religious multiplicity alive in the religious tradition of the Slavic people, opens up a possibility of considering new approached to other cultural phenomena. The art of the Croatian space as one such phenomenon was formed in the period before the Romanesque, and as an example of cultural multiplicity has thrived throughout the present day. Brilliant examples of such inspired synthesis of the urbs and rus are the art of the Dubrovnik Republic in the 15th and the 16th ct., of the Northwestern Croatia (the Zagorje region in particular) in the 17th and the 18th ct., and the urban renewal of Zagreb in the 19th and the 20th ct. The art of the Croatian space has thus retained the elements of “a happy marriage of city and village” dreamt of by Ebenezer Howard and Lewis Mumford.

Keywords

Rijeka; Croatian art; cultural ecology; Early Slavs; Romanesque sculpture; Prehistoric art

Hrčak ID:

261323

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/261323

Publication date:

16.8.2021.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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