The Magic World of Ivan Generalić [antikvár]

This book appears at a time when a sudden and striking interest is being mamfested, on the part of erities and the public, for naive art and culture In fact, so much attention has been paid, particularly in 1974, to artists working in an "ingenuous" vein of expression that a great number of unknown peasants, workers, "untrained" individuals, and obseure autodidacts have been thrust preeipitously into the limelight. They have tried, and go on trying, to communicate to themselves and others through the forms of art (or more simply through pictorial and plastic forms) something of their own world, of their own ways of living and behaving. For many this activity has never gone beyond a mere Sunday pastime; for others, more gifted and more attentive to the potentialities of their own minds, painting has become a persona/ and typical act {a style), recognizable as such and, due to certain traits that they have in eommon, as belonging to the phenomenon of naive art. Somé books have attempted critical evaluations, others have sought to popularize the work of these naive masters. This book does not resemble any of them: it is not a history, since the chronology is interrupted by freely moving thoughts and reflections; it is not a critical essay, which in our opinion would have required a different formát and approach. It could be called a presentation of material, collected and placed at the disposal of scholars and art lovers. So that this material might be as complete as possible (a wish that has encountered no few practical difficulties) it was decided not merely to offer a catalogue of Ivan Generálié's work, but alsó to open a door on the world, ordinary or mysterious, that his work has influenced if not actually created. It was no easy undertaking, and one that could succeed only by entrusting the thread of the story to Generálié himself, in order that the material would remain intact and be seen not through vague or categorical interpretations, but through the same eye that had selected aspects and emotions from the panorama of nature and converted them into pictures. If a history thereby emerges, it does so from the very words of Ivan Generálié; if judgments are expressed, they are thoughts that the painter himself formulates on his own work, sometimes in an anecdotal vein (the actual event is always important for the naive painter even when he transfigures and changes it), sometimes in a technical one, through a «craftsman)s» constant and ever present preoccupation with doing a good job. The publisher is aware that certain contradictory judgments and «philosophically" conflicting attitudes will not escape the reader. He believes, however, that the richness of the peasant culture in which Ivan Generálié lives, its actual truth, alsó emerges from these incongruities, from the kind of dialogue that age-old habits and beliefs must necessarily interweave with the ways of life and thought typical of our age and civilization.