Mijo Kovačić and the Hlebine School

Abstract

This article examines the work of Croatian artist Mijo Kovacic, one of the leading representatives of the Hlebine School. The author examines the works of the artist in the context of naive painting in Croatia: the unity of the plots and characters, the differences and similarities to the paintings by other artists. Kovacic’s creative work is also interesting in terms of a peasant’s perception of the world which is religious, but, at the same time, employing fantasy, and prone to myth-making. The author puts forward her own view on the interpretation of archaic characters in the reverse glass painting referring to examples of symbols in the works of Kovacic which might help understand the concept of the Hlebine School as a whole system in its fundamental relationship with folk roots and folklore, an inextricable link with ancestral memory, Croatian fairy tales, and legends. In Russian there are a limited number of materials devoted to Yugoslav naive art, so the author hopes that this article will help all those interested in naive and primitive art to discover the multifaceted talent of brilliant artist Mijo Kovacic. The article was written with reference to foreign sources — monographs, and articles; an interview with the artist played an important role too as it provides a more comprehensive notion of his ideas.