Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

IVAN MESTROVIC: SCULPTOR AND PATRIOT rOSE who have seen trees on a stormy coast, twisted and stunted by wind and spray but living persistently-beaten over by the gale but still striving to grow straight-will have ready a parallel of the unconquerable spirit of a harried and down- trodden nation. But the parallel does not go far enough, for man has something which the tree has not, and the gale cannot beat him over, neither can it twist or stunt him to outrageous deformity. His suffering induces greater strength, and what is a knotting of the tree is in him a development of power. Slowly and painfully he amasses strength to resist completely, to overcome, to stand nobly erect. Then he looks back across the years, and sings a song. He recalls the tragic vicissitudes he and his kind have passed through, or he sums the philosophy of troublous times in sweet, sad words. Thus Alfred Noyes, in words which memory brings forward in the present connexion What does it take to make a rose, Mother-mine ? The God that died to make it knows It takes the world's eternal wars, It takes the moon and all the stars, It takes the might of heaven and hell And the everlasting Love, as well, Little child. In 1389 the Serbs were defeated by the Turks at the great battle of Kosovo, and Serbia came under Turkish domination. Then followed centuries of oppression, smouldering fires of national aspira- tion, hopes apparently destroyed, but always re- incarnated. To-day we see the flame of hope new- risen in Serbia. Britain and her allies are on the side of freedom and national self-expression and the up-rising of a newer, diviner impulse in life. Jugo- slav unity is to be a new power in the world, possibly the undreamed-of power to link the ancient East with the modern West. And the Celtic spirit rejoices to see these things, to welcome them unquestioningly, in its own impetuous way. Rouget de Lisle wrote the flaming Marseillaise, giving expression to the soaring ideals of France, and Ivan Mestrovic is the artist-prophet of Serbia, the voice crying in a wilderness which may yet be a garden. Born at Vrpolje, in Slavonia, some thirty- one or thirty-two years ago, he lived the life of a peasant in a land of stone, where heat in summer and cold in winter are poignant extremes. Of actual I instruction in the theory and practice of his art he has received little, but his self-teaching has given him a power which it would be difficult to over-estimate. Indeed, his work is amazing. Vienna gave him some help, perhaps, in technique, but one trembles to think what might have happened had Mestrovic been less matured when he went there, for his visit was at the time when L'Art Nouveau was at its worst. There is not the least taint of that terrible influence in his work, which is individual to an extent which might have appalled some people a year ago. Since then we have learned a little-a very little-of what suffering means. Serbian folk-lore is already known in this country through the writings of M. Woislav M. Petrovic and the work of Sir John Bowring and others, and Ivan Mestrovic has kindled a fire of artistry-celticism, as some of us would fain call it-builded upon the white hearth of Serbian national verse. And it all comes from that terrible battle at Kosovo, which gave birth to hero legends and yearning folk-songs innumerable. How natural then that the very name Kosovo should become a talisman-word with the Serbs, how fitting that the memory of their liberation should be enshrined in a Temple of Heroes to be erected on the very plain where Serbia was beaten down, to rise again Mestrovic has designed this temple, and a model of it, the central feature of a magnificent exhibition of the sculptor's work, is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensing- ton. It will be convenient to write in some detail of this model, which is symptomatic of the artist's method, and afterwards to mention briefly some of the individual items of statuary. Mestrovic expresses himself in forceful simplicity, that is, in truth. He is no subscriber to the Portu- guese doctrine Over the forceful nakedness of truth, the diaphanous mantle of fantasy beautiful as that doctrine may be in its own place. Mestrovic cannot allow himself to be hampered by the diaphan- ous. The motif of his temple of heroes is, simply, immovable power blending with fierce, spiritual determination to excel: mountainous strength and a desiring worship of beauty. There is a central octagonal cupola with three surrounding cupolas, smaller but similar, and in front a truncated tower in tiers, each tier supported by beautifully modelled caryatids. This temple is to be the home of Mes- trovic's work, but one cannot help thinking that it