Loyalty to Kindred

A number of events were organised this year to mark the 150^th anniversary of his birth and to pay homage to this great Serbian painter. The celebrations will continue into 2010.

By Spomenka Jelić Medaković
Photo by Belgrade City Museum

His long life, voluminous opus, national and universal popularity, international awards and recognitions, testify that Pavle Paja Jovanović (1859–1957) was a "favourite of the gods". He received concrete affirmation of his artistic gift early in life. Few artists can boast of having received fees for works executed at the age of 14. Jovanović had just become a teenager when his drawings of saints for the casting of bells in the Cathedral in Vršac were accepted. This was quite a feat, despite the fact that he imitated the figures of the saints, at the request of church tutors, ensuring that he would not be turned down. Later, when he became a painter in his own right, he frequently received commissions that brought him significant income. In fact, his work always brought a significant income, and after his death, the value of his paintings sometimes soared into the millions of dollars. Recently, three of his paintings were sold in Austria for some eight million dollars.

A number of events were organised this year to mark the 150^th anniversary of his birth and to pay homage to this great painter. The celebrations will continue into 2010. The first exhibition, Slike Balkana (Images of the Balkans), opened on June 16, the painter's birthday, in his native Vršac. This was followed by the unveiling of a memorial plaque on his house on Birčaninova St. in Belgrade. In October, the renovated premises of the Paja Jovanović Museum were re-opened to the public, accompanied by a fine catalogue/ guide put together by Senior Curator of the Belgrade City Museum Jasna Marković, who was also in charge of the collection. The exhibition at the Serbian Arts and Sciences Academy (SANU) gallery, as the central event, is set to open in late December. Jovanović was received as a corresponding member of the Serbian Learned Society (precursor to SANU) in 1884, and was later accepted as a full-fledged member in the Serbian Royal Academy. Next year, an exhibition devoted to Jovanović will open at the Matica Srpska (Serbian Cultural/Literary Society) gallery in Novi Sad, and a roundtable discussion will be held in Vršac devoted to contemporary interpretations of Jovanović's work. To this should also be added the publication of a large monograph by art historian Nikola Kusovac titled Paja Jovanović 1859-1957.

Painter Paja Jovanović, about whom we know a lot from his copious memoirs, was born in Vršac on June 16, 1859, into a middle-class family led by photographer Stevan Jovanović. As the eldest child, he remembered his mother Ernestina, née Deot, a French woman, who died in 1866 when he was just seven years old. Whether due to the early loss of his mother, whom he loved very much, or due to a proclivity for the fair sex that he acquired over time, Paja Jovanović always depicted women with a particular tenderness. He was even criticised for 'excessively beautifying' certain people – not only women – in his portraits. His father had eight children from two marriages, and he struggled to support them. Although far from affluent, the father wanted to provide his talented children with the best possible education, and he took his eldest son Paja to Vienna to enroll him into the Art Academy. Later, the younger brother, Milan, studied photography in Vienna, and went on to become a renowned Belgrade and court photographer. In his memoirs, painter Jovanović recounted how much pride he felt when, accompanied by his father, he climbed the stairs of the famous school of painting to show the examination board his drawings, and then the frustration he felt while descending the stairs after being rejected. One of the reasons for this early defeat in 1875 was that he was deemed too young for the Academy. Following preparations under Professor Christian Grippenkerl, in 1877 he successfully passed the entry examination and enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. Graduating in 1880, he continued his studies with Grippenkerl, after which he refined his knowledge with the famous pedagogue Leopold Karl Müller – "Vienna's best painter of historical compositions". He re-affirmed his extraordinary talent as early as 1882, when he displayed his painting called "Ranjeni Crnogorac" (The Wounded Montenegrin) at the Academy's annual show. Not only did he receive high praise from critics, but Jovanović also won an award – a 1,000-forint imperial stipend. The contract he signed at the time with English art merchant Wallis to do paintings "with motifs from the life of Montenegrins, Herzegovians and Albanians" for the French Gallery, London, brought him significant financial income. In London, he became part of England's respectable circles. Still, his restless spirit and a continual need for new things spurred him to move on. The following year, in 1884, he moved to Munich. Although he remained bound by the contract with the English art merchant for 12 years, and later by commitments to others, he did not much enjoy doing these commissions. Afterwards, he was to write that, fortunately, he discontinued painting those mercantile figures for Wallis."

Jovanović travelled across Montenegro, the Caucasus, Morocco, Spain, Egypt, Turkey (Constantinople) in search of inspiration and fresh motifs for his paintings. It is often said of Jovanović that he "cruised extensively around Europe, Africa and part of America". He lived in Munich, Paris, Belgrade, but by mostly in Vienna.

By virtue of his trade he came into contact with many prominent figures of his day. Emperor Franz Josef paid tribute to Jovanović while he was just a student – he received a commission to do a portrait of the monarch. He was supposed to stay in the monarch's company for merely 20 minutes; instead, he remained for two hours. After his initial visit, he would return to the court in Vienna 14 times to do portraits. He did a larger number of representative portraits of the emperor. One of them adorned the Schönbrunn Palace; others found a place in other important institutions. Paja Jovanović also did portraits of other statesmen: King Aleksandar Karadjordjević, for instance, or President Tito.

Jovanović executed most of his opus in the style of Academic Realism. He also replicated some of his works. Thus, he did seven canvases of Proglašenje Dušanovog Zakonika (Promulgation of Emperor Dušan's Code), or Krunisanje Cara Dušana (Coronation of Emperor Dušan) – the same composition has two titles. One of them was destroyed in a fire at the Chilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos. Although the composition was unchanged for the most part, the canvas kept in Jovanović's Museum differs from the one in the National Museum in Belgrade in terms of the applied colouring and size; the latter is the largest in the series. For this painting, he won the Gold Medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. His most popular paining, however, is Seoba Srba (Migration of the Serbs). This earlier composition was in fact commissioned by Patriarch Georgije Branković for the Millennium Exhibition in Budapest in 1896. Yet, for some reason, Jovanović failed to complete the painting in time and his Vršački Triptihon (The Vršac Tryptich) appeared at the Budapest exhibition instead. He displayed his Migration of the Serbs at the patriarchal court in Sremski Karlovci the same year – 1896 – and it appeared immediately in nearly all the Serbian journals, and soon after it was printed as colour lithographs. Later, Jovanović did a smaller-size replica of this painting on canvas. Although they have not enjoyed such wide popularity, the broader public is well acquainted with his works that include Mačevanje (Fencing), Kićenje Neveste (Adorning the Bride), Borba Petlova (Cockfighting), which was awarded the Gold Medal in Vienna in 1898), Krvni Umir (Peace Council over a Blood Feud) and others. Along with genre scenes and historical compositions, Jovanović also did excellent portraits. Among the finest of these are: the portrait of Montenegrin Princess Milica, Queen Marija Karadjordjević, Mihajlo Pupin, the painter's wife Muni, a young woman by the fireplace, painter Simington, Countess Forgács, Mme Gartenberg, Baroness Erlanger and others. He was also interested in religious themes and did the iconostasis at the 'Small Church' in Dolovo in 1898; he also decorated a Mormon church in Salt Lake City in 1902; while in 1905 he did the iconostasis of the Upper Church in Sremski Karlovci and completed the iconostasis at the Novi Sad Cathedral Church; in 1927 he decorated the chapel at the Royal Court building in Belgrade's Dedinje quarter.

As far as themes, he was also interested in landscapes, still lifes, and flowers. His last painting was a floral motif. Seven years after his death, when a reporter from Svijet newspaper visited Jovanović's widow, Hermina Muni Jovanović, née Dauber, who was thirty years his junior, in Viennam, she recounted that the artist stopped painting because his eyesight had become very poor: "It was not the frailty of the body, nor senility, not any chronic disease, but the rapid decline of his eyesight that prevented him from picking up the palette and seeing through many ideas and desires…. He ended his life in his 99^th year, but his vivid artistic imagination never stopped working until his last breath... 'I have so many ideas', he would say. 'I would like to paint a kolo dance consisting only of girls in Bosnian folk costumes. Our wonderful girls, they are distinct in the world.' And he would attempt to act upon this idea. But, dissatisfied with it, he demanded that I burn the canvas in the furnace. This, in general, was the fate of all his paintings during those last days." She added that her husband's "love for his homeland could be matched by very few things in his life." Although he was a 'citizen of the world', he remained loyal to his countrymen to the end.

Painter Paja Jovanović died on November 30, 1957, in Vienna. The urn with his ashes – in accordance with his wishes – was carried to Belgrade. It rests in the Alley of the Greats at Belgrade's New Cemetery.

Paja Jovanović Museum Crowds of admirers visiting the Paja Jovanović Museum have not dwindled since the museum was reopened in October 2009. This is not surprising because the museum allows visitors to experience a nearly identical replica of the artist's Vienna studio. "This is home to the legacy the painter bequeathed to the Belgrade City Museum in 1952", says art historian Jasna Marković, the museum's senior curator and person in charge of the legacy. The collection consists not only of paintings but also of parts of Jovanović's studio, and was on several occasions supplemented by new gifts from the painter. According to the inventory, the collection has 657 items, together with the works. Jovanović's wife Hermina left a number of presents to the museum after her death in 1972. The museum opened to public on June 16, 1969, on the fourth floor of a building dating to 1930 on Belgrade's no. 21 Kralja Milana St. This apartment was adapted to serve as an exhibition space, including things from Jovanović's studio that were transported from Vienna and recreated in Belgrade. The exhibited works are an inseparable part of the studio and belong to the international school of painting at the turn of the 20th century. The painter selected for presentation works from every theme – landscapes, portraits, historical compositions, genre scenes, still lifes, religious and mythological compositions, illustrations, nudes...