Licitar

Licitar je šareno ukrašeni kolač od slatkoga tijesta kakav se tradicionalno proizvodi u središnjem i nizinskome dijelu Hrvatske; također i obrtnik (medičar) koji ga proizvodi, a izrađuje i druge medenjake, napitke od meda (medica, gvirc), svijeće i zavjetne darove od očišćenoga i prerađenoga voska, te ih prodaje ponajprije na sajmovima i proštenjima. Nekoć se tijesto za licitare utiskivalo u ručno izrađene (drvene) kalupe, a danas se oblikuje u limenim kalupima pa se peče, boji voćnim bojama (crvena, žuta, zelena, bijela) i ukrašava šećernom smjesom, ogledalcima i dr. Licitar je najčešće u obliku srca, konja, ptice, gljive, vijenca i sl.

Dana 15. studenoga 2010. tradicija pravljenja licitara je upisana na UNESCO-v popis nematerijalne svjetske baštine u Europi.

Povijest
Tradicija izradbe licitara započela je već u srednjem vijeku, a u XVI. i 17. stoljeću u mnogim su se europskim samostanima pripravljali kolači i medenjaci s pomoću bogato ukrašenih drvenih kalupa. U istočnoalpskome području, takva je izradba kolača ubrzo prerasla u obrt, koji se postupno proširio i na druga područja srednje Europe i u panonske krajeve Hrvatske. U 18. i 19. stoljeću, u gradovima Zagrebu, Karlovcu, Koprivnici, Samoboru, Varaždinu i drugdje, licitari su bili ugledni obrtnici, a njihovi proizvodi omiljeni među pripadnicima svih staleža.

Danas
Običaj darivanja licitara, kojim mladić djevojci iskazuje svoju privrženost i ljubav, duboko je ukorijenjen u hrvatskoj kulturi (balet Licitarsko srce K. Baranovića), jednako kao i ukrašavanje božićnog drvca sitnim licitarima. Zahvaljujući velikom umijeću te svojstvenom načinu oslikavanja koje su hrvatski obrtnici prenosili i razvijali s generacije na generaciju, licitar je danas postao jedan od nacionalnih simbola te predstavlja autohtoni hrvatskih tradicijski suvenir.

Licitars are colorfully decorated biscuits made of sweet honey/gingerbread dough that are part of Croatia’s cultural heritage and a traditional symbol of Zagreb. They are used as an ornamental gift often given at celebrations of love such as weddings, St. Valentine’s Day, birthdays. At Christmas time Zagreb is adorned with thousands of licitar hearts; the Christmas tree in the main square is festooned with thousands of licitar hearts.

In 2010, UNESCO added the Gingerbread craft from Northern Croatia to the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” for Croatian culture.

History and Tradition
The tradition of making and giving Licitars is very old, stretching as far back as the 16th century. Licitar makers, known as Medičari, were highly regarded in society, and their Licitars very much sought after (licitars were more sentimental than giving a bouquet of roses). Even today the tradition is kept alive by a select few who covert the art in family secrecy, and their methods of production have scarcely changed.

Licitars became famous due to their being sold at the Marian shrine of Marija Bistrica (near Zagreb) to which pilgrims visited St Mary of Bistrica for the Assumption or St Margaret’s Day. Although not a religious symbol, licitars were often bought to take home as a reminder of their long and sometimes arduous journey to Zagorje. Licitars’ simple shape and attractive colour and decorations were a keen souvenir to show their families and neighbours on their return.

Ingredients and Method
Licitars are made using traditional ingredients, methods and devotion. Their ingredients are simple (honey, flour, eggs, water and natural colours) but their preparation is long. The dough matures for a few days, then is shaped and baked and left for two weeks to dry. Colouring is the next step after which they are left to dry again for two weeks. Once dry the licitars are finally decorated and again left to dry for a week.

Traditionally Licitars are 100% handmade, decorated with a swirling outline, small flowers and a small mirror. Being made of honey dough and natural products Licitars are also edible.

Modern Uses
In modern times Licitars are traditional Croatian souvenirs (and can be found in all Croatian airports and in many tourist gift shops), Christmas tree decorations, wedding favours for guests, business gifts, many other ornamental purposes, and is still given as a way of showing your affection to the ones you love.

 

Josip Generalić

Josip Generalić, (Hlebine, 19. veljače 1935. – Koprivnica, 22. prosinca 2004.)

Josip Generalić, klasik Hlebinske škole i hrvatske naive, rođen je 19. veljače 1936. u Hlebinama, u Podravini. Nakon završene osnovne, pohađa Učiteljsku školu u Križevcima, a diplomirao je 1962. na Višoj pedagoškoj školi u Zagrebu. Slikati je počeo početkom pedesetih godina, ugledavši se u oca Ivana. Prvi put izlaže 1954., a samostalno 1959. Radio je kao učitelj u osnovnim školama u Podravini, a potom je nastavnik fizičke kulture u Zagrebu. Sredinom sezdesetih, uz potporu švicarskog galerista Brune Bischofbergera, posve se posvetio slikarstvu i postao profesionalnim umjetnikom. Godine 1998. vratio se u zavičajne Hlebine. Umro je u Koprivnici 22. prosinca 2004.

U prvom stvaralačkom razdoblju slijedi standardnu hlebinsku motiviku i stilistiku, slika podravske ljude, krajeve i idilične prizore seoskog života. Deskriptivan je, predočuje niz anegdotalnih situacija i služi se plošnim kolorističkim tretmanom. U doba traženja vlastitog puta, okušavao se i u djelima nadrealnih i apstraktnih značajki. Pojavivši se na likovnoj sceni istodobno s lvanom Večenajem i Mijom Kovačićem, Generalić mlađi razlikuje se od spomenutih umjetnika time što je napustio rodne Hlebine, školovao se i od 1960. živi i radi u Zagrebu. Prema tomu, on otad više nije bio u neposrednom dodiru sa selom i prirodom, pa je u njegovoj poetici memorijska slika njegovo ishodišno načelo: došljak u grad slika pejzaže i selo svoje mladosti i svoj ih sanja.

Sredinom šezdesetih mijenja tematiku, stilske i poetičke značajke, združuje idealizirane hlebinske prostore i novoosvojeni cvjetni dekor. Od sporednih, cvijeće i cvjetne arabeske postaju središnjom temom njegova slikarstva. Uz niz florealnih elemenata, česti su i erotski naboji: slika brojne kupačice, nage žene bujnih oblika u hedonističkim prizorima. Sve je poopćeno i nadindividualno, oblici su stilizirani i reducirani do znaka, do pojma o predočenome, a prizori često simbolički. U tom razdoblju mijenja i tehniku: sve više slika uljem na platnu i lesonitu, a sve manje na staklu.

Ova florealna faza nedvojbeno je reakcija na sivilo velegrada u kojemu slikar živi; riječ je o nostalgiji za cvjetnim predjelima djetinjstva, reminiscencijama na Hlebine i rodni krajolik. U njemu naime i nadalje snažno pulsira legenda o “sretnom dobu” i “prirodnom životu”. Zato i podravske pejzaže pretvara u arkadijske, irealne vedute: slika blaženstvo prirode, ponekad i s melankoličnim nabojima.

Početkom sedamdesetih, djelo ]osipa Generalića pretrpjelo jer nove metamorfoze: počinje slikati portrete prominentnih ličnosti iz svijeta glazbe, filma, show-businessa i pop-kulture. Uz seljačke figure i scene iz ruralnog zivota, javljaju se planetarne estradne zvijezde smještene u ambijente i pejzaže slikarova djetinjstva, njegove voljene Podravine. Umjesto u Woodstocku, hipiji održavaju koncert na podravskim ledinama, u pozadini portreta Sofije Loren zasnježeni je hlebinski krajolik; u parodiji Rousseauove Jadwighe, umjesto mlade, stasite djevojke vidimo otežale oblike ostarjele seljakinje smještene na tratinu ispred hlebinske crkve (Hlebinska Jadwigha, 1973), itd. Portreti su prepoznatljivi, no težiste je na ironiji i grotesknosti, cime autor demitologizira predočeno. Anegdotalnost i romantičnost hlebinske matrice preobrazile su se u alegorijske i satiričke slike. Time ostvaruje sintezu rustikalnog i urbanog, modernog. U tim je djelima zamjetljiva i autorova evidentna zaokupljenost mondenošću.

Sedamdesetih godina nastaje i serija njegovih vrlo ekspresivnih i psihološki uvjerljivih seljačkih portreta s nizom verističkih značajki (Jendraš, 1973; Furijan, 1975), u čemu prepoznajemo Generalićev vjerojatno najznačajniji obol hrvatskoj likovnoj umjetnosti. To je doba kada se ponovno posvema priklonio slikanju na staklu; pritom vrši redukcije na bitno, sve pročišćava i sažima, čime i postiže iznimnu sugestivnost.

Potkraj sedamdesetih započinju nove mijene u Generalićevu stvaralaštvu. Ako je dotad tražio harmoniju, nakon 1978. okreće se disharmoničnosti, ako je isprva bio opsjednut Ijepotom, sada počinje naglašavati nakaznost. Sa slika nestaju Podravina i Arkadija, pastorale i idilični prizori. Na temelju vlastite drame (smrt majke, nesporazumi s ocem) počeo je svjedočiti o tragičnom osjećanju života. Sve postaje prepuno oporih poruka, prikazuje naličje svijeta, osućluje animalnost Ijudske prirode, vidimo brojne bizarne erotske aluzije. Ruga se pohlepi i iskvarenosti, mračnim ljudskim strastima, ističe moralnu nakaznost i slika tragične scene suvremenog života (Gvajana, 1978, inspirirana znanim kolektivnim suicidom). To više nisu simboli strave, nego prikazi užasa samoga, nepodnošljive egzistencijalne more. Očito slikar bijaše opsjednut rasapom suvremenog svijeta i čovjeka. U ovoj crnoj fazi sve je prepuno monstruoznih bića, mutanata, podjednako Ijudskih i životinjskih značajki. Uz ikonografiju horrora, dominiraju dijaboličnost, sarkazam i ironija.

Promjena tema i sadržaja uvjetovala je i izmjenu tehnike: umjetnik sve manje slika na staklu, a sve se više bavi akvarelom i grafikama.

Već od kraja šezdesetih, Josip Generalić prepoznat je kao vrlo osebujan umjetnik. Od njegovih najzapaženijih uspjeha valja izdvojiti: sudjelovanje na izložbi Ivan Generalić und die Schule von Hlebine, City-Galerie, Zurich 1964; niz samostalnih nastupa s ocem od sredine šezdesetih do sredine sedamdesetih godina u brojnim švicarskim, njemačkim i talijanskim galerijama; učešće na međunarodnim trijenalnim smotrama naive u Bratislavi (Insita 1969, 1994) i Zagrebu (Naivi  1970, 1973, 1977, 1987). Slijedi sudjelovanje na povijesnim izložbama Die Kunst der Naiven, Haus der Kunst, Munchen 1974, i Yougoslavie / Peintres et sculpteurs naifs, Grand Palais, Pariz 1976. Godine 1981. sudjeluje na izloibi Hlebinski krug / 50 godina naivnog slikarstva, u Galeriji primitivne umjetnosti u Zagrebu; 1986. na putujućoj izložbi Japanom Eleven Naive Artists from Yugo slavia, započetoj u Setagaya Art Museumu, Tokyo, a 2000. na kritičkoj izložbi The Fantastical World of Croatian Naive Art u Museum of Fine Arts u St. Petersburgu, Florida. Josipu Generaliću priređeno je vise od stotinu pedeset samostalnih izložaba, a sudjelovao je i na velikom broju skupnih. U nekoliko je navrata djelovao kao kazališni scenograf, bavio se tapiserijom, a brojnim je crtežima opremio niz knjiga i časopisa. Objavio je nekoliko grafičkih mapa u tehnici svilotiska i bakropisa. Posljednjih godina života snažno se angažirao oko ustroja i vođenja Galerije Ivan i Josip Generalić u Hlebinama, s nizom očevih remek-djela te velikim fundusom vlastita stvaralaštva. Skupio je i vrlo respektabilnu zbirku etnografske građe rodnog kraja.

Josip Generalić, a classic of the Hlebine School and the Croatian Naive, was born on February 19. 1936. in Hlebine, Podravina. After finishing primary school, he attended the Normal School in Križevci, and took his teacher’s certificate in 1962 at the Educational College in Zagreb. He started painting at the beginning of the fifties, taking his father Ivan as his model. He had his first exhibition in 1954 and his first solo show in 1959. He worked as a teacher in primary schools in Podravina, and then became a PT teacher in Zagreb. During the sixties, with the support of Swiss gallery owner Bruno Bischofberger, he dedicated himself entirely to painting and became a professional artist. In 1998 he went back to live in his native Hlebine. He died in Koprivnica on December 22. 2004.

In the first creative period, he followed the standard Hlebine set of motifs and style; he painted Podravina people, regions and idyllic scenes from rural life. He tended to be descriptive, presenting a number of anecdotal situations and employing a flat colorist treatment. When he looked for a manner of his own, he tried his hand at works with surreal and abstract characteristics. Appearing on the art scene at the same time as Ivan Večenaj and Mijo Kovačic, Generalić Junior nevertheless differed from these artists in that he left his native Hlebine, became educated and, from 1960 on, lived and worked in Zagreb. Accordingly, from this time he was no longer in direct contact with the countryside and nature and in his poetics it was the remembered image that was the originating principle: the newcomer to the city painted the landscapes and countryside of his youth and his dreams.

In the mid-sixties he changed themes, stylistic and poetic features, and combined the idealised Hlebine regions with a newly-adopted floral motif.  At first subsidiary, flowers and floral arabesques became the central topic of his painting along with the series of floral elements, there were frequently erotic overtones: he painted numerous bathers, nude women of somewhat luxuriant forms in hedonistic settings. Everything is rather generalized and supra-individual, the forms are stylised, reduced to the sign, to the idea of what is represented, and the scenes are often symbolic. In this period he also changed his technique, painting increasingly in oil on canvas or hardboard, and less and less on glass.

This floral phase was without doubt a reaction to the drabness of the big city in which the artist lived, at work here is nostalgia for the flower-filled areas of his childhood, reminiscences of Hlebine and his native landscape. The legend of “the golden age” and “the natural life” still pulsed strongly within him. And so he turns the Podravina landscapes into irreal, Arcadian vistas: he painted the bliss of nature, sometimes with tinges of melancholy.

At the beginning of the seventies, the work of Josip Generalić suffered a new metamorphosis: he started painting portraits of prominent personalities from the world of music, film, show-biz and pop-culture. Alongside the bucolic figures and the scenes from rural life, planetary pop stars appeared, located in the settings and landscapes of the painter’s childhood, his beloved Podravina. Instead of in Woodstock, the hippies held their concert on the greenswards of Podravina, and in the background to the portrait of Sophia Loren looms the snowy Hlebine landscape; in a parody of Rousseau’s Jadwigha, instead of the buxom young girl we see the ponderous form ofa peasant woman of somewhat advanced years on the grass in front of Hlebine Church (Hlebine ]adwigna, 1973), and so on. The portraits are identifiable, but the focus is on irony and the grotesque, the author demythologizing what he presents. The anecdotalism and romanticism of the Hlebine mainstream have been transformed into allegorical and satirical images. In this, he manages to produce a synthesis of the rustic and the urban, the modern. In this works the artist’s very obvious absorption with the fashionable is also much to the fore.

The seventies saw a series of very expressive and psychological portraits of country people, with a number of veristic characteristics (Jendras, 1973; Furijan, 1975), in which we can recognise what is probably Generalić’s most important input into Croatian visual art. This is the time when he once again entirely devoted himself to painting on glass, carrying out at the same time a reduction to essentials, refining and condensing everything, achieving thereby an exceptional suggestiveness.

Around the end of the seventies new modifications appeared in Generalić’s work. Up to that time he had sought harmony, but after 1978 he turned to disharmony; previously obsessed by beauty, he now started to emphasize the freakish. Podravina and Arcadia vanished from the paintings, along with the pastorals and the idyllic scenes. Working out some of his own dramas (the death of his mother, disagreements with his father), he started to tell ofa tragic sense of life. Everything was now instinct with harsh messages; he showed the other side of the coin of the world and condemned the animality of human nature, and we can see numerous bizarre erotic allusions. He mocks greed and corruption and the darker side of human passions, foregrounding moral monstrosity and painting tragic scenes from contemporary life (Guiana, 1978., inspired by the collective suicides). These are not symbols of horror, but depictions of horror itself, of an intolerable existential nightmare. The painter was clearly obsessed with the idea of the disintegration of the contemporary world and humanity. In this black phase, everything is full of monstrous beings, mutants, with characteristics that are equally human and animal. Dominant alongside the horror iconography are sarcasm, irony and intimations of the diabolic.

A change in the topics and contents entailed changes in technique as well: the artist painted increasingly little on glass, and more and more went in for water colors and prints.

As early as the end of the sixties, Josip Generalić was recognized as a distinctively individual artist. Of his most important successes, particular mention should be made of his participation in the exhibition Ivan Generalic und die Schule von Hlebine, City-Galerie, Zurich 1964; a number of solo shows together with his fatherfrom the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies in numerous galleries in Switzerland, Germany and Italy; participation in the international triennial exhibitions of the Naive in Bratislava (Insita 1969,1994) and Zagreb (Naivi 1970, 1973, 1977, 1987). After this came appearances at the historical exhibitions Die Kunst cler Naiven, Haus der Kunst, Munich 1974 and Yougoslavie / Peintres et sculpteurs naifs, Grand Palais, Paris 1976. In 1981 he took part in the exhibition The Hlebine Circle / Fifty Years of Naive Painting, Gallery of Primitive Art, Zagreb 1981; in 1986 his work was featured in a travelling exhibition in Japan called Eleven Naive Artists from Yugoslavia starting off at the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo; in 2000, the artist’s works were shown at the critical exhibition The Fantastical World of the Croatian Naive Art, Museum of Fine Arts, St, Petersburg, Florida.

Josip Generalić had more than hundred and fifty one-man shows, and took part in a very great number of collective exhibitions. Several times he worked in stage design, dealt with tapestry, and provided drawings as illustrations for numerous books and magazines, He issued a number of graphic albums of silkscreens and etchings in the last years of his life he was very much engaged with the organisation and running of the Ivan and Josip Generalić Gallery in Hlebine, with a number of his father’s masterpieces and a large stock of his own work. He also put together a very worthwhile collection of ethnographic material from his native region.

Article taken from the book “Umjetnost Hlebinske škole” (by Vladimir Crnković).
Članak preuzet iz knjige “Umjetnost Hlebinske škole” (autora Vladimira Crnkovića).

www.naiva.hr

Krsto Hegedušić

Krsto Hegedušić (Petrinja, 26. studenog 1901. – Zagreb, 7. travnja 1975.), hrvatski slikar
Krsto Hegedušić (Petrinja, 26. November 1901. – Zagreb, 7. April 1975.), Croatian painter

To što se rodio u Petrinji nije za njega imalo velike važnosti, jer se poslije očeve smrti 1909. godine obitelj vratila u Hlebine od kuda je obitelj Hegedušić bila podrijetlom i od tada počinje njegova prisna veza s Podravinom.

Godine 1920. pohađa Privremenu višu školu za umjetnost i umjetni obrt ( današnju Likovnu Akademiju) u Zagrebu i slika prve arhetipske podravske idile. Specijalka kod Becića i grafički tečaj kod Krizmana obogatili su Hegedušićevo znanje, ali nisu utjecali na njegov slikarski stil.

U Parizu gleda slike Pietera Breughela i sluti svoju figuralnu morfologiju. Ni tada se ne prekida njegova veza s Podravinom. Iz sjećanja na podravska obojena stakla nastala je mala tempera, također na staklu Bilo nas je pet vu kleti. Malo poslije, 1929. , nakon susreta sa slikarima Tabakovićem i Postružnikom i pariškim đakom Leom Junekom, osniva skupinu Zemlja. Slika Harmonikaš iz tog razdoblja ideološki odbacuje umjetnost radi umjetnosti, Poplava je puna kritičkog naboja i razornog djelovanja. Podravski motivi tiskani 1933. kao vizualni korelat književnog ruralnog mita Miroslava Krleže popraćeni su i Krležinim predgovorom.

Za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata u strahu od uhićenja zbog prijašnjih ljevičarskih istupa privaća zaštitu kardinala Stepinca i tijekom 1941. radi mnogobrojne skice za fresku Golgota u Mariji Bistrici. Poslije rata Hegedušić je imenovan redovitim profesorom Akademije likovnih umjetnosti, a 1950. dobiva naslov majstora slikara i postaje voditelj majstorske radionice. Hegedušićevo slikarstvo dokaz je da se umjetnost ne može posve odvojiti od spoznaje, zato u njegovim slikama ima i poruge i suvremenih otuđenja. Mladoženja, vol i pumpa iz 1969., slika je onoga što ostaje, a što je ostalo od grada, što je ostalo od čovjeka u gradu. Od 1971. do 1973. u spomen-domu na Tjentištu radi na velikom ciklusu fresaka. Prizori su puni strave. Čitav taj veliki i radikalni opus Krste Hegedušića ne možemo svrstati u lijepe slike, jer one su pobuna protiv zla.

Krsto Hegedušić was a Croatian painter, illustrator and theater designer. His most famous paintings depict the harsh life of the Croatian peasantry in the manner of naive art. He was one of the founders of the Zemlja group of artists.

He was born in Petrinja, but when his father died in 1909, the family came back to Hlebine, the village in the region of Podravina from which they originated.

In 1920 Hegedušić enrolled in the Arts and Crafts College in Zagreb, where he made his first idyllic paintings of Podravina. The painting courses of Vladimir Becić and Tomislav Krizman widened his horizons, but did not influence his style.

In 1926 he was awarded a French government scholarship and spent two years in Paris. There he studied the paintings of Pieter Breughel.

Hegedušić made his first one-man exhibition with Juraj Plančić at the Ulrich Gallery in Zagreb in 1926. He made paintings with social themes, showing the exploitation of the Croatian peasants. In 1929 he got together with the painters Ivan Tabaković and Oton Postružnik, as well as Leo Junek in Paris. They founded Zemlja (“soil” in Croatian), the first Croatian group of artists that promoted Marxism. Hegedušić was their ideologue and unofficial leader. Paintings like The Accordionist and The Flood are socially critical and reject purely artistic goals.

In 1930 he founded the Hlebine School, a naive art movement that involved young peasant painters. One of them, Ivan Generalić, reached world fame. Podravina Motifs, published in 1933, was a book combining his drawings with a poetic essay by Miroslav Krleža, today considered a masterpiece of Croatian literature. Krleža would later write a script for a documentary feature about Hegedušić (1962).

Hegedušić started teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in 1936. During the anti-communist oppression in the 1930s, he was arrested several times. When the Nazi-sponsored Ustaša came to power in 1941, Hegedušić came under the protection of the Archbishop Stepinac. He spent the war quietly working on various themes, including religion (numerous sketches for the Calvary fresco in Marija Bistrica in 1941). When the communist government was installed in Yugoslavia in 1945, Hegedušić was appointed professor at the Zagreb Academy. In 1950, he founded a “master’s studio” there.

Paintings like The Bridegroom, the Ox and the Pump from 1969 are critical of urban life. In the period 1971-73, Hegedušić worked on a large cycle of macabre frescoes for the war memorial of Tjentište. He illustrated books and designed ballet and theater sets.

www.naiva.hr

Hlebine school / Hlebinska škola

Hlebinska škola je naziv za skupinu umjetnika iz Hlebina i okolnih sela u Podravini. Izraz „škola“ se ovdje može koristiti samo uvjetno i to prvenstveno kada se govori o zajedničkim težnjama i stilskim osobitostima ove skupine umjetnika. Oni su većim dijelom bili akademski neobrazovani te su njegovali naivni izraz. Genezu ove slikarske skupine bi trebalo promatrati u okviru širih umjetničkih kretanja u Hrvatskoj tog razdoblja. Težnje koje su proizlazile iz djela hlebinaša mogu se pronaći već i ranije kod nekih hrvatskih intelektualaca. Antun Gustav Matoš 1914. u likovnoj umjetnosti zahtjeva „naš likovni izraz“. Nadalje, Miroslav Krleža je nekoliko godina kasnije u skladu s tim zahtjevom u „Književnoj republici“ pisao o krizi našeg slikarstva. Povodom Junekove izložbe održane 1925., Krsto Hegedušić je pisao o idealu hrvatske pučke umjetnosti prema kojem umjetnost treba težiti. Taj ideal definira kao „izraz koji bi bio samostalan u nacionalnom smislu, nezavisan od upliva Zapada, istovremeno i socijalan.“

Hegedušić je ubrzo počeo tragati za tim „našim pučkim likovnim izrazom“.  Na temelju navedenog Hegedušićeva ideala postaje jasnije zašto je on taj ideal pokušao tražiti i oblikovati među akademski neobrazovanim slikarima-seljacima. Naime, kod njih nije postojala opterećenost općeevropskom tradicijom akademske doktrine. Umjetnici iz Hlebina su u svoja djela unosili tematiku i motive hrvatskog sela kao izraz nacionalne posebnosti. Isto su tako prikazivali i socijalnu dimenziju većeg dijela hrvatskog stanovništva. Zbog toga je njihova umjetnost pogodovala širenju ideja Hrvatske seljačke stranke. U Hlebinama je Hegedušić počeo držati sate slikanja tamošnjim mladićima, Ivanu Generaliću, a ubrzo zatim i Franji Mrazu. Na Hegedušića je utjecalo i slikarstvo na staklu Valentine Prax s kojom se susreo 1927. Temeljem tog iskustva, u Hrvatskoj se oslanjao na „slikarsku tradiciju postbaroknog religioznog slikarstva sjeverno-hrvatske ruralne sredine“. Kao rezultat tih težnji, 1927. nastaje slika ‘Bilo nas je pet vu kleti’. Ovo je djelo postalo fundament buduće hlebinske škole.

Hlebine School is the name for a group of artists from Hlebine and surrounding  villages in Podravina, Croatia. The expression “school” can only be used  conditionally, primarily when referring about common aspirations and stylistic peculiarities of this group of artists. Largely, they were academically uneducated and have fostered a naive expression.
Genesis of this painting group should be seen in the broader art developments in Croatia in this period. Aspirations coming from Hlebine artists’ works can already be found in the past among some Croatian intellectuals: Antun Gustav Matoš required in art “our artistic expression” in 1914. Few years later Miroslav Krleža, in accordance with this requirement, wrote about the crisis in our painting in his “Literary Republic”. Before Leo Junek’s exhibition (held in 1925.), Krsto Hegedušić wrote about the ideal of Croatian folk art to which art should aspire to. That ideal he defined as “an expression that was independent in national terms, independent of influence from the West and social at the same time.”

Hegedušić soon began to search for that ideal – “our folk art expression.” Based on the above description of Hegedušić’s ideal becomes clear why he tried to look for it and spread it among academically uneducated painters-peasants – there was no burden with European tradition of academic doctrine among them.
Artists from Hlebine brought themes and motifs from Croatian villages in their works as an expression of national peculiarities. They’ve also shown the social dimension of much of the Croatian population. This social aspect of their art facilitated the expansion of Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka) and their ideas.
Hegedušić began giving painting lessons in Hlebine to local talent – Ivan Generalić and soon after to Franjo Mraz. Hegedušić met Valentine Prax in 1927. and was influenced by hers painting on glass technique. Based on this experience, he relied on the “painterly tradition of post baroque religious painting from north Croatian rural areas”. In 1927. he painted the famous „Bilo nas je pet vu kleti“ as a result of these aspirations. This work became the foundation of future Hlebine school.

Some parts of “Hlebinska škola i začeci hrvatske naivne umjetnosti” by Igor Loinjak were used in this article.
Upotrebljeni su djelovi iz “Hlebinska škola i začeci hrvatske naivne umjetnosti” od Igora Loinjaka.

www.naiva.hr

Naive art? / Naivna umjetnost?

Naiva – nazivana i naivnom umjetnošću, umjetnošću naivnih, primitivnom umjetnošću, umjetnošću modernih primitiva itd. – posebni je segment umjetnosti XX. stoljeća. To je izdvojena skupina umjetnički neškolovanih slikara i kipara sred velikog broja izraza i struja moderne umjetnosti. Od ostalih samouka, amatera i narodnih, pučkih umjetnika, naivi se razlikuju uvijek prepoznatljivim osobnim stilom i poetičkom singularnošću, dakle, umjetničkom vrsnoćom. Naiva je pojam – kao što su i pojmovi ekspresionizam, kubizam, astratizam, dadaizam, nadrealizam itd. – kojim objedinjujemo neke izdvojene svjetove modernoga umjetničkog stvaralaštva.

U Hrvatskoj se pod pojmom naiva podrazumijeva stvaralaštvo umjetnika koji su pristigli iz amaterizma, više ili manje samouka, dakle autora koji likovnu naobrazbu nisu stjecali sustavnim obrazovanjem na umjetničkim školama i akademijama, ali ih to nije spriječilo da ostvare vlastiti stil i razinu umjetnosti. Prepoznatljivo individualni stil i uvijek prisutna individualna poetika naivu jasno diferenciraju od brojnih primjera amaterizama i diletantizama, “nedjeljnih” i “pučkih” slikara i kipara, kao i ostale nerazlučene množine samoukih. Kako umjetnici naive ne poznaju u potpunosti akademsku konstrukciju djela, to su u njih stalno prisutni stanoviti “pomaci” u proporcijama i perspektivi, kao što su očite i brojne “nelogičnosti” oblika i prostora. Pozitivne valorizacije takvih svojstava mogle su se prihvatiti kao izraz slobodne stvaralačke imaginacije tek nakon iskustava simbolizma, ekspresionizma, kubizma, nadrealizma i ostalih pokreta i fenomena Moderne. Time se jasno naznačuje da je i naiva izraz XX. stoljeća i sukladna modernom senzibilitetu.

Naiva je posljedica i dokaz demokratizacije kako općedruštvenih odnosa tako i umjetničkog stvaralaštva. Ona jasno pokazuje da se svatko ima pravo umjetnički izražavati i da umjetničke škole same po sebi nisu jamstvo umjetničke vrijednosti, jer se umjetnost može ostvarivati i bez njih. U naivi je emotivnost pretpostavljena racionalizmu i intelektualnim spekulacijama, u većini slučajeva naiva izražava radost življenja i pobjedu Nade. Tu otkrivamo “zaboravljenu prirodu” i “minulo djetinjstvo”, priče i snove, živu imaginaciju i jednostavne ljudske zamišljaje, zaboravljeno “čuđenje nad svijetom” i veselje nad motivima. No, naiva nije samo arkadijska umjetnost i idila, ona ne iskazuje samo ufanje i slavljenje života, ima u njoj i muklih kazivanja, tamnih akorda i ktonskog, u naivi srećemo također tragično i simboličko, fantastiku i irealnost, nadrealne odnose, somnambulizam i nestvarnost, što znači da je sazdana od mnogih suprotnosti, kao i Život.

The Naive – also called naive art, the art of the naives, primitive art, the art of the modern primitives and so on – is a distinct segment of the art of the 20th century. It is comprehends a discrete group of painters and sculptors untrained in the ways of art, among the limitless number of kinds of expressions and trends in modern art. The Naives are always distinguished from other self-taught, amateur, popular and vernacular artists by their identifiable artistic style and poetical singularity; by, then, their sheer artistic excellence. The Naive is a concept – just like the concepts of Expressionism, Cubism, Abstractionism, Dadaism and the Surreal and so on – that we use to interrelate some of the separate worlds of modern artistic creativity.

In Croatia the concept of the Naive assumes the work of artists who arrived from amateurism, people who are more or less self-taught, painters and sculptors who did not obtain their education by systematic training at art schools and academies, which did not, however, prevent them from creating their own style, achieving their own level of art. An identifiably individual style and an individual poetics that is always there pick the Naive out quite clearly from the various examples of amateurism and dilettantism, from “Sunday” and “vernacular” painters and sculptors, and from all the rest of the undifferentiated mass of the self-taught. Since the artists of the Naive do not know how to construct a work according to the lessons of the academies, there are always certain departures in their works in proportions and perspective, and numerous “illogicalities in form and space. A positive evaluation of such characteristics, as the expression of the free creative imagination, could come into being only after Symbolism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and the other movements and phenomena of the Modern Movement had already been experienced. This clearly shows that the Naive is also a 20th century form of expression and is in key with the modern sensibility.

The Naive is the consequence and proof of democratisation in both the general relations in society and in artistic creation. It clearly shows that everyone has the right to express himself or herself in art and that schools of art are in themselves no guarantee of artistic value, because art can be created even without them. In the Naive, emotion counts more than reason and intellectual speculations. In the majority of cases, the Naive expresses the joy of life and the victory of hope. Here we can discover “the forgotten nature” and “lost childhood”, stories and dreams, a vital imagination and simple human inventions, the forgotten “wonder at the world” and the ability to rejoice in motif. But the Naive is not just an Arcadian art and idyll, it does not express only trust in and celebration of life; there are some sorry tales in it too, some dark and chthonic accords; in the Naive we can also come across the tragic and the symbolic, the fantastic and the irreal, surreal relationships, somnambulism and unreality, which all means that it is made up of a hundred opposites, just like Life.

Article taken from The Croatian Museum of Naive Art.
Članak preuzet od Hrvatskog muzeja naivne umjetnosti.

www.naiva.hr