Chisel

TOMA ROSANDIĆ (1878–1958), SCULPTOR, A BRIDGE TOWARDS MODERNISM IN SERBIAN CULTURE
Carved in Time
He was a born stonemason and made his most sublime creations in walnut. He chose Belgrade before Belgrade choose him, and their bond will last forever. He directed Serbian sculpture from XIX century aesthetics towards modern concepts. He was Serbian academician and one of the founders of the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts. We remember him by the playful horses in front of the National Assembly (1937), ”Stone Thrower” in the National Museum (1935), ”Head of Christ” in the Museum of Contemporary Art (1915), ”Self-portrait” at the Faculty of Fine Arts (1930) and bareheaded Njegoš from Trebinje (1934)...

By: Dejan Đorić

The double jubilee of sculptor Toma Rosandić (Split, 1878-1958), a hundred and forty years since his birth and sixty years since his death, hasn’t been marked on our cultural scene in any way, although he was mostly connected to the Serbian environment in his life and work. Only a bit younger than Nadežda Petrović and a bit older than Jovan Bijelić, he has done in his field of work the same that Nadežda and Kosta Miličević have done in painting – he directed Serbian sculpture from XIX century aesthetics, as the case was with Petar Ubavkić and Đorđe Jovanović, towards modern concepts. In his master’s workshop, following the decree of minister Rodoljub Čolaković, some of the best Serbian sculptors studied, so Rosandić can be considered father of Serbian modernism in sculpture. In order to prove it, it is sufficient to say that he was also one of the founders and first professors of the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts.
He was born in a stonemason’s family, so his father taught him to work with a chisel very early. From him he learnt the most important lessons: respecting crafts and dedication to work. The then famous stonemason Bilinić, who already accepted another young student – Ivan Meštrović, soon introduced him to his workshop. This was the most important encounter for Rosandić’s creative work. He made sketches at the time, composed, cast in plaster and cut in stone with the same curiosity he had for studying technical issues, theoretical discussions or lives of famous artists. It was a time when artists still aspired towards ingenuity, when theoreticians never even thought of contesting the essence of artistic greatness.
Young Rosandić left the profitable craft and without any financial means set off to Italy, to meet Michelangelo, Donatello and Renaissance masters in Rome, Florence and Venice. He worked in stonemason workshops and studied, and two years later, in 1906, exhibited his first work, Nude of a Young Man in Milan, a classical subject which attracted him his entire life. Critics were kind to him, which was sufficient for him to make the most important decisions – he will be an artist and he will look for Ivan Meštrović.
Two great men matured together, studied, advanced, had long and vivid conversations about the problems of contemporary sculpture. They had several role models, but not a single predecessor or successor. It would be reasonable to assume that older and more experienced Rosandić influenced younger Meštrović, whose view was limited to the local workshop. Reality was, however, completely different. Meštrović was such a hurricane-like and enormous phenomenon, that Rosandić had never come out of the domain of his influence. The relationship of two sculptors was similar to the one of Picasso and Braque, although Meštrović was a greater phenomenon. They participated at the ”Medulić” group exhibitions together, and Meštrović showed his unselfishness and devotion by inviting his friend to Vienna to share his humble scholarship. They discovered Secession there, although Rosandić was perhaps more influenced by Realism. Unlike him, Meštrović developed a more individual style and form and was more under influence of Michelangelo, Rodin and the Assyrians. Rosandić exhibited his sculpture Young Man in Vienna and then participated in the famous exhibition in Rome 1911, in the Serbian pavilion. The only one who wrote about it at the time was Dimitrije Martinović. St. Vid’s Church was an ambitious triumph of Meštrović at the exhibition and opened him the way to the position of state sculptor in the new kingdom. Rosandić presented himself more humbly, with reliefs showing the fight of Serbian people against the Turks. Thanks to them, he arrived in Belgrade in 1912, determined to stay in the new environment. World War I made it impossible for him, so he went to Italy, then Switzerland, France and England. He was successful and participated in exhibitions in London, Brussels, Edinburg, Paris and Brighton.

THE SCULPTOR AND HIS CITY

At that time, he abandoned the sturdy forms of Hellenist sculpture and modeled elongated, ascetic figures, under the influence of Gothic art. It was his original contribution to the appearing aesthetics of Expressionism. His figure of Christ, for which he prepared by first creating it in plaster and then in wood, as well as the head of the Savior, are the most deeply moving works of Yugoslav sculpture, much deeper and mysterious than anything created by Ernst Barlach. The stonemason created his most sublime creations in walnut. In his monograph about this sculptor from 1959, Miodrag Kolarić interprets the mystical sculptures: ”(…) The construction was achieved with such consistent reduction of form, that sensitivity remained naked, free of any matter, any anecdote.” Later, in Stone Thrower and other works, the sculptor returned to full form, strong bodies and physical strength equal with the spiritual, which is especially visible in the group sculpture Playful Black Horses. He placed both groups in bronze at the entrance of the National Assembly in 1937, a man and a horse in each. The subject was not new, but the way of placing man towards a horse was. There is nothing similar in the history of art. Human strength was emphasized with a man accepting the horse on his chest or carrying it on his back, symbolically ruling the animal or submitting to it, certainly most responsible for its fate. They are the ”most monumental sculptures in modern Serbian art – perhaps even the only truly monumental sculptures”, notices Kolarić, because monumentality is not only measured with dimensions of the work, but with its internal force and drama.
With his sculpting work, Toma Rosandić closed the circle from late Antiquity fullness of distinct realism to modern sculpture with reduced and expressive forms. He is very significant as the founder of Serbian sculpting modernism, and even more inevitable as one of the greatest twentieth century Balkan sculptors. Belgrade, unlike other Yugoslav centers, proved to be wide enough to accept a sculptor of such format and preserve the memory of him.

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Our Toma
Toma Rosandić was born in 1878 in Split as Tomaso Vincenzo, but created his most important works in Serbia and was Serbian academician. He learned his craft and studied in Split, Italy, Vienna. He settled in Belgrade in the eve of World War I. During the war, he retreated with the Serbian army to Corfu and spent the war years in emigration. After the war, he returned to Belgrade and became professor of the School of Art. In the year 1937, he was one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade and its first rector, member of the Serbian Royal Academy since March 2, 1946 and regular member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts since March 22, 1948. Encyclopedias state that ”his opus includes portraits, busts, monumental sculptures, public monuments and tombstones”.
He built a house in Belgrade, in Senjak, Ljube Jovanovića 2 in 1929, where he was living and working for decades. He bequeathed it to Belgrade and, since 1963, it holds a museum exhibition with his authentic furniture, personal belongings and documents, as well as part of his works.
He passed away in Split, on March 1, 1958, at the age of 80.