FAMOUS CROATS 2006 - VANJA RADAUŠ

VANJA RADAUŠ (Vinkovci, 1906 – 1975) is the author of numerous works of art in the more recent Croatian modern history. He was professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Zagreb, and led his master-class workshop from 1950. All his occupations and interests (sculptor, graphic artist, sketcher, poet, writer about older monuments in Slavonia ...) complete the image of the almost restless but inquisitive relationship towards the world as well as to his own creations. It is a question of Radauš having been a restless artist, with a stylistically non-coexistent opus which – both earlier and now – provokes dilemmas and dissimilar evaluation. Though he was considered to be a member of the Croatian sculptors’ “triumvirate” (together with Augustinčić and Kršinić), Radauš could hardly be linked to any group either by belonging to a generation or a specific style. He was both outside the permanent monumentalism of Augustinčić and the sensual and lyric mellowness of Kršinić and their sometimes morphological die-hard quality – which particularly goes for Augustinčić. Drowning his own doubts and fears into his created works, Radauš created an image of himself of a surprising and contradictory artist who would spend a moment on one and another moment on a different task, which sometimes caused dilemmas for his interpreters, critics and writers, inviting sometimes sharp negative reactions but numerous compliments as well. In any case, Vanja Radauš has remained the most provocative problem and interpretative challenge of the Croatian sculpture of the last century. By the dynamics of changes (themes, manner, material ...), his curiosity, imagination and fantasy and his inclination for experimenting he was a visionary type (Jung). It goes for a personality engrossed in feverish, even neurotic and sudden changes of theme, manner and solutions. What should be listed among the best and most fortunate moments of Radauš’s opus are his sculpture cycles (Typhoid victims, Man and karst, Portrait of our man, and others, as well as his medallion pieces and graphic maps (Dance macabre, We remember, and others). What should also be particularly mentioned is his sculpture cycle Panopticum croaticum (1959 – 1961) with the images of the greatest and tragically deceased Croatian great personalities (V.Karas, S.Raškaj, J.Račić, A.G.Matoš and others). He is also the author of numerous busts and half-length portraits (Master Radovan, Đ.Šaković, Ćiro Truhelka, Franjo Kuhač and others) as well as numerous monuments in public places, for example Petrica Kerempuh on the open market Dolac in Zagreb. In the case of Vanja Radauš one should point out the concept of artistic living and artistic behaviour on account of which Radauš – on the outer side of the security of his generation’s colleagues – was the most modern and most interesting spirit of the Croatian sculpture of the 20th century. He discovered his style of behaviour, though not always also his style in art, substantiating thus his restless creative nature. This is why the extent of his interests and the variety of his solutions reveal the man who has confirmed Gombrih’s idea that nowadays there is no art but only the artist. In one word, Radauš should be viewed in the wholeness of his fortunate and less fortunate solutions; he should be considered the model of a modern and creatively inquisitive spirit who, looking for new possibilities of expression and contents, dared start moving along different paths. Ive Šimat Banov