DEVELOPMENT OF OLGA JANČIĆ’S AND ANA BEŠLIĆ’S MODERNIST SCULPTURAL LANGUAGE

Abstract

The aim of this article is to point out important similarities in the works of Olga Jančić’s and Ana Bešlić’s modernist phases through comparative analysis. Starting from the development of the sculptural practice of both artists in the culturo-political climate of the socialist realism of the 1950’s, the article focuses on the shaping and creating the language of modernist sculpture of the 1960’s and 1970’s in Serbia. The focus is on the two artists’ aspirations, as representatives of the post-war generation of artists, to tackle contemporary sculptural issues. From the radical reduction of form, which rests on the symbiosis of organic typology of shape (inspired by Brancusi and Arp) and Henry Moore’s principles of vital form of archetypical symbolic potentials, are the roots of the starting sculptural point of both artist’s orientation. The sculptural evolution of Ana Bešlić moved from a realistic and moderately stylized form to a complete autonomy of shape. Olga Jančić articulated her development to the associative and organic form a bit more expressively, robustly, dramatically and emotionally explicit.