Status of monument -> National monument
Published in the “Official Gazette of BiH”, no. 28/10.
Pursuant to Article V para. 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 39 para. 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, at a session held from 1 to 7 December 2009 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The movable property consisting of a collection of works of art by Jovan Bijelić in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Collection).
The National Collection consists of the following 18 paintings by academic artist Jovan Bijelić:
- Gruž (1914)
- Bosnian Landscape with River (1929)
- Dubrovnik (1932)
- Village in Bosnia (1939)
- Scene from Bosnia (1939/40)
- Two Sailing Boats (1940)
- Portrait of Tito (1953)
- Scene from Venice (1954)
- Before the Storm (1956)
- Bihać (1960)
- Improvization no. 5 (1960)
- Tiškovac in Bosnia (1960)
- Composition (1962)
- Mills on the Una (1963)
- Fort (1963)
- Portrait of Vojin Basarić (1968)
- Portrait of Teodora Basarić (1968)
- Portrait of a Man with Moustache (1968).
The National Monument is housed in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum at no. 2, V Corps street in Bihać, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The provisions relating to protection measures set forth by the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH nos. 2/02, 27/02, 6/04 and 51/07) shall apply to the National Monument.
II
The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Government of the Federation) shall be responsible for providing the legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the protection, conservation and presentation of the National Monument.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission) shall determine the technical requirements and secure the funds for preparing and erecting signboards with basic details of the monument and the Decision to proclaim the property a National Monument.
III
The Government of the Federation shall provide suitable physical and technical conditions for the safekeeping of the National Monument and provide the conditions for the expert conservation and restoration of the paintings and drawings.
The display and other forms of presentation of the National Monument in Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be carried out on the basis of conditions to be stipulated by the federal ministry responsible for culture.
Supervision of the implementation of the protection measures pertaining to the movable heritage shall be exercised by the federal ministry responsible for culture.
IV
Everyone, and in particular the competent authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Canton, and urban and municipal authorities, shall refrain from any action that might damage the National Monument or jeopardize the preservation thereof.
V
The removal of the collection as a whole or individual items thereof (hereinafter: the movable heritage) from Bosnia and Herzegovina is prohibited.
By way of exception to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Clause, the temporary removal from Bosnia and Herzegovina of the movable heritage for the purposes of display or conservation shall be permitted if it is established that conservation works cannot be carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina or can be carried out to a higher standard and more quickly and cheaply abroad.
Permission for temporary removal under the conditions stipulated in the preceding paragraph shall be issued by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission), if it is determined beyond doubt that it will not jeopardize the movable heritage in any way.
In granting permission for the temporary removal of the movable heritage from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Commission shall stipulate all the conditions under which the removal may take place, the date by which the items shall be returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the responsibility of individual authorities and institutions for ensuring that these conditions are met, and shall notify the Government of the Federation, the relevant security service, the customs authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the general public accordingly.
VI
The Government of the Federation, the Federal ministry responsible for culture and the Federation heritage protection authority shall be notified of this Decision in order to carry out the measures stipulated in Articles II to V of this Decision.
VII
The elucidation and accompanying documentation form an integral part of this Decision, which may be viewed by interested parties on the premises or by accessing the website of the Commission (http://www.kons.gov.ba)
VIII
Pursuant to Art. V para 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decisions of the Commission are final.
IX
This Decision shall enter into force on the day following its adoption and shall be published in the Official Gazette of BiH.
This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Martin Cherry, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović, and Ljiljana Ševo.
No. 04.-2-.2-40/2009-60
2 December 2009
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Ljiljana Ševo
E l u c i d a t i o n
I – INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “National Monument” is an item of public property proclaimed by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to be a National Monument pursuant to Articles V and VI of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and property entered on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02) until the Commission reaches a final decision on its status, as to which there is no time limit and regardless of whether a petition for the property in question has been submitted or not.
On 23 December 2008 the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać submitted a petition to designate the collection of works of art by Jovan Bijelić as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Pursuant to the provisions of the law, the Commission proceeded to carry out the procedure for reaching a final decision to designate the said property as a National Monument, pursuant to Article V para. 4 of Annex 8 and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
Statement of Significance
The works of art by Jovan Bijelić forming part of the permanent exhibition in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać were acquired by gift or purchase for the collection of the former AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać. The oldest painting in the collection (1914), depicting the coastal town of Gruž, is from the artist’s early period, in a markedly Cézannist manner. Three portraits from the latter half of the 20th century are from the final period of his productive career as an artist, painted “in a single burst of colour.”
Jovan Bijelić (1884-1964) was one of Yugoslavia’s leading artists between the two World Wars, who studied art at leading art centres: Cracow (1909-1913), Paris (1913-1914) and Prague (1915). On completion of his studies he lived briefly in Bihać before settling in Belgrade in 1919, where he was employed as stage designer and head of the artists’ workshop of the National Theatre in Belgrade.
The influence of 20th century artistic trends that Jovan Bijelić encountered during his studies was to have a marked impact on his mode of expression, regardless of whether he was painting portraits, landscapes or still lifes. His artistic signature changed as he matured through a number of stages. The influence of Cubism can be seen in the sculptural concept of solidly modelled forms and his restrained palette, and of Fauvism, characterized by “colourful works of extreme lushness and sensual expression.” In his final stage his brush strokes became ever more disjointed, dissolved by other artistic means. This collection provides an outstanding selection of paintings from every stage in his work as an artist, and one of the most representative individual collections in any museum or gallery in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As well as teaching, Jovan Bijelić was co-founder of the artists’ groups known as Oblik [“form”], Samostalni [“self-reliant”] and Nezavisni [“independent”]. In 1963 he was made a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
II- PRELIMINARY PROCEDURE
In the procedure preceding the adoption of a final decision to proclaim the property a national monument, the following documentation was inspected:
- documentation on the property in question from the Una Sana Cantonal Museum,
- details of the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs,
- an inspection of the current condition of the property,
- available reference works dealing with the property in question.
The findings based on the review of the above documentation and the condition of the site are as follows:
1. Details of the property
Location
The collection of works of art by academic artist Jovan Bijelić is housed in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum at no. 2, V Korpusa Street in Bihać, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Historical information
The Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać is the continuation of productive museum work lasting without a break for more than half a century.
It was founded on 30 March 1953, by ruling of Bihać Municipality no. 3692/53, as the City Museum. As its activities extended beyond the town, its name was changed, first to the Bihać Museum and then to the wider region of the Una valley, to the Pounje Museum in Bihać, by decision of Bihać Municipality no. 18/46/1-1961 of 23 December 1961.
Another museum was at work in Bihać at the same time and even in the same premises – the AVNOJ Museum (Museum of the First AVNOJ Session). Over the years the museums shared certain services, the curators of the Pounje Museum often acting on behalf of the AVNOJ Museum and vice versa. As a result, at a session held on 13 April 1964 the two museums decided to merge, calling themselves the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum.
As time passed, however, and in particular as the Pounje Museum developed, the two split up again. With the agreement of the other municipal councils of the Una and Sana valleys (Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Petrovac, Bosansko Grahovo, Cazin, Drvar, Sanski Most and Velika Kladuša), who assumed the rights of co-founders, Bihać Municipal Council issued a ruling (no. 02-631-10/71, of 9 April 1971) founding the Pounje Regional Museum in Bihać, which took over the staff, collections and basic resources of the Pounje Museum. Following these changes, two branch museums were formed as part of the Regional Museum:
- the Jovan Bijelić Museum, in Bosanski Petrovac;
- the permanent exhibition of the Second ZAVNOBiH Session and Sanski Most and its environs in the War of National Liberation, in Sanski Most.
After the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came to an end, Bihać Municipal Council adopted decision no. 01-023-11/96 of 25 November 1996 by which it assumed founders’ rights and merged the Museum of the First AVNOJ Session with the Pounje Regional Museum in Bihać.
By decision of the Assembly of Una Sana Canton on the designation of cultural institutions of cantonal importance, no. 01-1-108/97 of 29 December 1997, the Pounje Regional Museum in Bihać was designated as an institution of cantonal importance.
After the adoption by Bihać Municipal Council of decision no. 0/01-023-29 of 31 March 1998 transferring founders’ rights and obligations in regard to the Pounje Regional Museum from Bihać to the Una Sana Cantonal Assembly, the Cantonal Assembly adopted decision no. 01-1-49/98 of 12 June 1998, assuming founders’ rights and obligations in regard to the Pounje Regional Museum in Bihać, which continued operating under the new name, prescribed by the same decision, of the Una Sana Cantonal Museum.
Jovan Bijelić was born on 30 June 1884 in the hamlet of Revenik, village of Kolunići, near Bosanski Petrovac. He attended primary school in Petrovac and was then sent by his parents to Sarajevo to continue his education. There he attended grammar school and the school of applied arts, followed in 1906 by the art school of Jan Karel Jankovski. In 1908, with support from Prosvjeta, the Serbian educational and cultural society, he enrolled in the Art School in Cracow, from which he graduated in 1913. After spending some time visiting and furthering his education in Paris and Prague, he was appointed as assistant drawing master at the Great Grammar School in Bihać in 1915/16 (Tihić, 1972, 11- 39), remaining there for three school years. As well as teaching, he spent his time painting, mainly in oils on canvas, showing some of his works at an exhibition held in October 1917 in Sarajevo, and again in 1919 in Zagreb. His works were very well received at both exhibitions. Bijelić's Bihać period is usually regarded as a time when he was still seeking his own voice: the works he produced at this time are derivative, based on the knowledge he acquired while at art school – impressionism, secessionism, naturalism, Cézannism, expressionism and abstraction (Tihić, 1972, 40-43). His success at the Zagreb exhibition was the deciding factor in his being accepted for the post of stage designer in the National Theatre in Belgrade (Tihić, 1972, 40- 43). He came to Belgrade in November 1919, and remained there until his death on 12 March 1964.
In 1919 and 1920, Bijelić was producing “symbolic canvases without the customary themes and subjects, consciously attempting to blend Parisian aesthetic rationalism with German expressionism” (Protić, 1964, 7). Later, his painting turned into “a kind of museum-like realism” (Protić, 1972, 12). Typical works of this period are the portraits of Milan Dedinac and Brane Ćosić, Girls with Books, a series of still lifes (of which the best-known is his 1927 Still Life in the Art Gallery of BiH in Sarajevo), and various nudes, such as that of the Grande Baigneuse of 1929 from the Pavle Beljanski collection. His pupil Đorđe Popović wrote of this period: “For a full ten years his approach would be the same. Throughout this time his palette remained unchanged. Zinc white, ivory black with its range of warm to cool tones, kraplak, vermilion-red, caput mortuum, raw sienna, burnt sienna(1), yellow ochre, cadmium yellow and cadmium orange, chrome green, Prussian blue and ultramarine. No new colour ever entered his palette. He avoided fully porous backings, because he liked his paintings to be luscious, with the sheen of oil, and sometimes a rich impasto; the usual French style of matt paintings did not suit him.” (Tihić, 1972, 119- 160, Protić, 1972, 12).
Bjelić's work took a new turn in the 1930s, when he opted for pure colour and bold strokes. All changes thereafter would remain within this framework. Two paintings regarded as Bijelić's chefs-d'oeuvre, and indeed as masterpieces of Yugoslav art in general, date from this period: Bosnian Landscape, and Little Girl in a Pram, from 1933, which are in the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade (Protić, 1972, 14). From this time, colour became Bijelić's principal means of expression (Tihić, 1972, 161-184).
Bijelić spent World War II in Belgrade, producing some fine works, the most suggestive of which is Dark Landscape from the collection in the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade.
After 1950 there were some quite significant changes to his work, more of an aesthetic than a painterly nature, reflected in his attitude to weather and the object. He painted almost nothing other than landscapes with low horizons and stormy skies, occupying two-thirds of the canvas, using shades of red, yellow, blue and green. In these paintings the brush-strokes are forceful, swirling upwards, with the colour often bleeding. The actual subject disappears, leaving only an allusion to it and an eruption of colour (Tihić, 1972, 207-218). His earlier explosive tones of many colours yield to a palette of chocolate-brown, dark brown, grey and largely neutral tones.
In the mid 1950s, Bijelić lost his sight, regaining his sight in one eye after an operation in 1958. After this he created a cycle of smallish, wholly abstract canvases (Tihić, 1972, 79-82). His favourite subjects were Bosnian landscapes, but instead of the Bosnian houses and villages of his earlier work, his canvases now featured “curiously shaped hills and mountains, characterized by an inner tension of mass, marked plasticity of forms, and a degree of geometrical values” (Tihić, 1972, 214).
Jovan Bijelić showed his works at many exhibitions, both in Yugoslavia and abroad. He was also noted for his teaching work, in which he passed on his know-how to Nikola Graovac, Đorđe Popović, Pavle Vasić, Aleksa Čelebonović, Danica Antić, Dušan Vlajić, Peđo Milosavljević and others. He designed the sets for several plays performed in the National Theatre in Belgrade. He also worked as an illustrator, and wrote a number of short stories.
Jovan Bijelić’s paintings were acquired by the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in the following manner:
1. Gruž (1914) – purchased in Belgrade in 1968 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
2. Bosnian Landscape with River (1929) – donated to the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać by Academician Dr Kosta Todorović of Belgrade in 1968
3. Dubrovnik (1932) – purchased for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
4. Village in Bosnia (1939) – donated to the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać in Belgrade in 1967
5. Scene from Bosnia (1939/40) – purchased from Olivera and Milan Kadijević of Belgrade in 1968 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
6. Two Sailing Boats (1940) – purchased from Olivera and Milan Kadijević of Belgrade in 1968 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
7. Portrait of Tito (1953)
8. Scene from Venice (1954) – purchased from Marina and Zoran Dojčinović in Belgrade in 1972 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
9. Before the Storm (1956) – donated to the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać by the Executive Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1969
10. Bihać (1960) – purchased for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
11. Improvization no. 5 (1960) – purchased for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
12. Tiškovac in Bosnia (1960) – purchased in Belgrade in 1967 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
13. Composition (1962) – purchased for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
14. Mills on the Una (1963) – purchased in Belgrade in 1967 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
15. Fort (1963) – purchased in Belgrade in 1967 for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
16. Portrait of Vojin Basarić (1968) – purchased in 1968 from Teodora and Vojin Basarić for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
17. Portrait of Teodora Basarić (1968) – purchased in 1968 from Teodora and Vojin Basarić for the AVNOJ and Pounje Museum in Bihać
18. Portrait of a Man with Moustache (1968).
2. Description of the property(2)
The Una Sana Cantonal Museum holds a collection of 18 compositions from various stages in the artist’s career.
The painting of the coastal town of Gruž, which dates from his earliest period, has elements of the classical artistic tradition, while the form is treated on a rational basis. As his work continued in this period, during the 1920s and 1930s, Jovan Bijelić produced compositions blending the features of the landscapes of Bosnia and Herzegovina in an expressionist manner (for example, Bosnian Landscape with River, Village in Bosnia, Scene from Bosnia).
In Dr. Smail Tihić’s view, the compositions dating from his last two periods are new and colouristically bold, dramatically tense and impulsive visions of landscape, a true, immediate and sincere reflection of his personal drama and that of our troubled, out-of-joint times.
Paintings by academic painter Jovan Bijelić:
1. Jovan Bijelić, Gruž, 1914, oil on canvas, 38 x 63 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom left, in Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ, 1914. The scene is of a seascape in the manner of Cézanne, with a panorama of Gruž and the sea in the middle. The background is surrounded by pastel blue with a chain of mountains, with a clear blue sky above across which a few red-white clouds are sailing. The seashore and the houses along the shore are in a combination of orange and white. In the foreground are some green-blue tree canopies.
2. Jovan Bijelić, Bosnian landscape with river(3), 1929, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm. Currently in the Jovan Bijelić Museum in Bosanski Petrovac; originally in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać; signed on the painting: bottom left, on a yellow ground, in dark brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. The painting depicts a sombre sky above gloomy grey mountains in the background. A light blue river flows through an unidentified Bosnian location. Left and right are separated by an orange-yellow street. To the left are long, red-brown houses with two white walls and black roofs; to the right, above the street, is an old Bosnian house with a brown roof and a wooden gateway. Tree canopies in green, grey and yellow run from left to right of the composition.
3. Jovan Bijelić, Dubrovnik, 1932, oil on canvas, 66,5 x 53 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom right, in Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. Beyond a narrow strip of red soil is the old town, with yellow, red, orange and white buildings, dominated by the tall Minčeta fort. The background seems to displace the foreground, with its dark green and grey hills. By the shore the sea is soft blue, but the open sea is a rich dark blue. The sky, in pale blue shades, is broken up by a choppy pink line. Two ships at anchor by the shore are overhung by a tree canopy in light green and blue.
4. Jovan Bijelić, Village in Bosnia, 1939, oil on panel, 66 x 48 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom right, in white, Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. Expressionist landscape. Against a chain of sombre brown hills, houses with petroleum green, rose-red, pale violet and bluish walls and steep yellow, vermilion and brown roofs are scattered over the greensward below. A dark blue sky overcast with grey-green looms over grey-green hills. The occasional black window is indicated on the houses, and the white outline of a door on the right-hand house, behind which is a white house with a red roof.
5. Jovan Bijelić, Scene from Bosnia, 1939/1940, oil on plywood, 50 x 40 cm. Currently in the Jovan Bijelić Museum in Bosanski Petrovac; originally in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać; signed on the painting: u bottom right, in white Cyrillic lettering on a dark ground: BIJELIĆ. The painting is of an expressionist landscape. Light red two-storey houses with white walls, dark windows and red roofs stand on distant hills above a dark blue river.
6. Jovan Bijelić, Two Sailing Boats, 1940, oil on lessonite, 61,5 x 46,5 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom right, in white Latin lettering on a dark ground: BIJELIĆ. The bottom left corner of the foreground shows a deep blue sea with a pink and a yellow sailing boat. Above them rises the curving yellow shore, with tall, grey-red-roofed houses. The background is dominated by a mountain mass in “heavy” brown and grey. The top of the composition consists of a blue sky with pale clouds streaming in the wind.
7. Jovan Bijelić, Portrait of Josip Broz Tito, 1953, oil on canvas, 62 x 46 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: top left, in brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. The portrait was painted from a photograph of Josip Broz Tito in his blue-green Marshal’s uniform.
8. Jovan Bijelić, Scene from Venice, 1952, pastel on board, 66 x 47 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom right, in brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. A small vessel with a yellow sail in the Venetian lagoon(4), dominated by the domed church of Santa Maria della Salute. To the far right is a tall yellow building, and on the opposite site, diagonally, a pinkish-brown building. The sky and sea shimmer in shades of blue-green, the latter reflecting the clouds and landscape. Fresh expressionist pastels.
9. Jovan Bijelić, Before the Storm (Red Fog)(5), 1956, oil on panel, 90 x 75 cm. Currently in the Jovan Bijelić Museum in Bosanski Petrovac; originally in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać; signed on the painting: bottom right, in brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. The silhouette of a tall building can be made out in the foreground, to the far left, in an imaginary landscape of blue, green and terracotta-red. Above are swirling clouds in a blend of pink, zinc white, red, carmine and vivid yellow. Painted in a feverish, strong expression, partly in lazur(6) and partly in thick impasto strokes.
10. Jovan Bijelić, Bihać, 1960, oil on lessonite, 75 x 67.5 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum SIG. The foreground of the composition consists of an ultramarine blue river with two boats. To the far right is the corner of a house with a bright red roof. On the other side of the right, to the left, is a substantial bridge, and in the middle a tall church tower, old tower and three houses with terracotta roofs. The buildings are surrounded by luxuriant green vegetation. The sky is cloudy, with swirling brown strokes.
11. Jovan Bijelić, Improvization no. 5, 1960, oil on lessonite, 56 x 46 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom left: in blue, Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. A geometric abstract structure of red, brown, grey and black occupies the middle of the composition from top to bottom. The background is pinkish and blue green.
12. Jovan Bijelić, Tiškovac in Bosnia, 1960, oil on lessonite, 68 x 76 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom left, on a patch of green grass: in dark brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. The scene is of a landscape with hills in a narrow valley with yellow and green vegetation. The composition is enclosed on three sides by a mountain massif painted in a cheerful mixture of blue, green, grey and red. The landscape is “adorned” with two cottages with red walls and high dark roofs. Two haystacks occupy the foreground. The sky above is in flaming cadmium orange and red. The ground is exposed at the edges of the composition.
13. Jovan Bijelić, Composition, 1962, oil on lessonite, 54 x 65 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom left, in black, Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. A non-geometric abstract composition created by blending blue, white, red, brown and red.
14. Jovan Bijelić, Mills on the Una, 1963, oil on lessonite, 75 x 86 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom left, in Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. In the foreground is a narrow strip of red-green soil through which a river is flowing in the background, overflowing in yellow and blue tones. Tall, dark red mills of unusual shapes can be seen on the riverbanks. The setting sun is indicated by the use of red, cadmium yellow and orange pigments.
15. Jovan Bijelić, Fort, 1963, oil on lessonite, 105 x 90 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum. The painting depicts the round tower of an old fort in chocolate-brown, overgrown with green bushes above which is a brown-blue sky with swirling clouds. In the foreground, below the fort, is a lighter-toned area with a road running through it, and a shrub in the left corner.
16. Jovan Bijelić, Portrait of Vojin Basarić(7), 20th century, oil on canvas, 90 x 71. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom right, in dark brown Cyrillic lettering on a blue ground: BIJELIĆ. The painting portrays a man with glasses in a grey-blue coat, wearing a blue tie and white collar, leaning on one hand in “thinker” pose, his left hand rest on the edge of a table, holding a yellow walking stick. In front of him, on the table, is a red book. The background of composition is formed by the interaction of blue and yellow on a red screen.
17. Jovan Bijelić, Portrait of Teodora Basarić(8), 20th century, oil on canvas, 90 x 71 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: bottom centre, in dark brown Cyrillic lettering: BIJELIĆ. A smiling middle-aged woman is seated comfortably in a yellow armchair, wearing a dark brown dress with a white ribbon around her décolleté, and an elegant brown cap. Her cheerful face is adorned with earrings and a small unobtrusive medallion around her neck. The colour harmonies are echoed in the background of brown and green.
18. Jovan Bijelić, Portrait of a Man with Moustache, 20th century, oil on canvas, 79 x 63 cm. Bihać: Una Sana Cantonal Museum; signed on the painting: centre right: BIJELIĆ. The bust of a man in a dark-blue jacket and white collar neatly buttoned up “gleams” out of the grey-blue background. He has black hair, short side whiskers and a dark brown, drooping moustache.
3. Legal status to date
The movable property consisting of a collection of works of art by Jovan Bijelić in Bihać has not previous enjoyed protected status.
4. Current condition of the property
The findings of an inspection of the collection of works of art by Jovan Bijelić are as follows:
- the paintings and graphics(9) are in good condition,
- the paintings and graphics are housed in a makeshift storeroom,
- if the paintings are to be preserved in their present condition they should be cleaned and housed in premises provided with optimal conditions.
III – CONCLUSION
Applying the Criteria applicable to the movable heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.
The Decision was based on the following criteria:
A. Time frame
B. Historical value
C. Artistic and aesthetic value
C.i. quality of workmanship
C.iv. composition
C.v. value of details
D. Clarity
D.ii. evidence of historical change
D.iii. work of a major artist or builder
D.iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner
E. Symbolic value
E.v. significance for the identity of a group of people
G. Authenticity
G.i. form and design
G.vi. spirit and feeling
H. Rarity and representativity
H.iii. work of a prominent artist, architect or craftsman
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- documentation from the Una Sana Cantonal Museum,
- photodocumentation.
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the collection of works of art by Jovan Bijelić in the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:
1968 Miodrag B. Protić. Jovan Bijelić. Belgrade: Museum of Modern Art, 1968
1972 Miodrag B. Protić. “Jovan Bijelić”, in Nada Miljković (ed.), Srpski slikari i vajari XIX i XX veka (19th and 20th century Serbian Painters and Sculptors). Belgrade: Jugoslavija Publishing House, 1972
1972 Smail Tihić. Jovan Bijelić, in Jelena Čehić (ed..). Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, Cultural Heritage Series, 1972
1972 Boško Latinović, Branka Raunig, Smail Tihić. Jovan Bijelić, in Branka Raunig (ed.). Bosanski Petrovac Town Council and Bihać Regional Museum, 1972
1974 AA. VV. Umjetnost Bosne i Hercegovine 1945. – 1974 (Art of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1945-1974). Sarajevo: Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1974
2005 Exhibition catalogue: Zbirka Spomen muzeja Jovan Bijelić Bosanski Petrovac (The Collection of the Jovan Bijelić Memorial Museum in Bosanski Petrovac). Banja Luka: Museum of Modern Art of Republika Srpska, for the publisher: Ljiljana Labović Marinković, 2005
(1) Translator’s note: Or possibly raw umber and burnt umber, since both umber and sienna are clay earth pigments. The word in the original is “zemlja”, meaning simply “earth.”
(2) Jovan Bijelić's biographical details are from Decision no. 04-02-40/09-1 designating the movable property of the collection of works of art and personal effects of Jovan Bijelić in Bosanski Petrovac as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(3) In its letter ref. 08-01/09 of 6 January 2009, the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać states that they were not in agreement that three works by Jovan Bijelić (Bosnian landscape with river, 1929, oil on canvas, 90x70; Red fog, 1956, oil on panel, 91x78 cm; Landscape from Bosnia, 1939, oil on panel, 68x50 cm) be designated as a national monument as part of the collection in the Bosanski Petrovac Cultural and Education Centre, expressing the view that these works should be designated as a national monument as part of the art collection of the Una Sana Cantonal Museum. In a letter dated 31 December 2008 they state that they own these three paintings by Jovan Bijelić, and that the Museum had drafted an application to designate the works by Jovan Bijelić in the art collection of the Una Sana Cantonal Museum in Bihać (letter ref. 663-01/08 of 31.12. 2008). Decision no. 04-02-40/09-1 designating the movable property of the collection of works of art and personal effects of Jovan Bijelić in Bosanski Petrovac as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(4) Translator’s note: the original simply says “a sea gulf,” so that without seeing the painting it is not clear whether it depicts the Gulf of Venice or the Lagoon. Santa Maria della Salute is at the beginning of the Grand Canal at the Lagoon end, suggesting that this is perhaps the most likely explanation of “sea bay.”
(5) According to Smail Tihić, who studied the oeuvre of Jovan Bijelić, this painting is also known as Landscape with clouds. There is a slight difference in the measurements given here and by Tihić, who gives them as 89 x 75 cm.
(6) Translator’s note: All the dictionaries give “azure” as the translation of lazur. However, the word lazura, with a final “a”, is defined as “paint with a high proportion of binding medium, usually translucent; overpainting with a translucent paint so that the underpaint remains visible. If this is what is meant here, presumably lazur is a corruption of the word “glaze.” The entry for “glaze” in Grove Art Online reads as follows: “A transparent or semi-transparent paint layer, applied either directly over the ground or over an underpaint to modify the colour of the ground or underpaint. With the use of appropriate glazes the tonal range of a colour can be extended to give a greater contrast between highlights and shadows. Since the glaze is transparent, the colour of the underpaint or ground, which is generally lighter, plays a part in the final optical effect. The term ‘glaze’ is often used imprecisely to mean any thinly applied paint layer, particularly the final finishing touches to a painting. However, these can include combinations of pigments and media that are normally opaque or semi-opaque: it is simply the thinness of application that allows the underlying layers to contribute to the optical effect. Properly, thin layers of opaque colour applied to modify the underlying colours should be called ‘scumbles’.”
(7) In his detailed study of Jovan Bijelić, Smail Tihić regards this as a portrait of Karl Vajs. However, since the portrait was purchased from members of the Basarić (together with the portrait of Teodora Basarić, which Tihić says is of Teodora Vajs), it seems more likely that they portray members of the family who sold the portraits.
(8) See fn. 3.
(9) Translator’s note: since there are no graphics listed in this Decision, which in draft form was part of a decision covering both paintings by Jovan Bijelić (all of which are in oils except for one in pastels) and graphics by Dževad Hozo, the inclusion of the highlighted words is probably a hangover from the original draft which has not been corrected in either of the two subsequent revisions, though the reference to Dževad Hozo under the heading “Location” has been deleted.
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