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Paja Jovanović and the Imaging of War and Peace

Pavle (Paja) Jovanović (1859–1957) experienced an unprecedented level of international success among Serbian painters from the onset of his professional career as a painter of Balkan scenes. While what he presented to a highly receptive international public was what on the surface appeared as primarily genre subjects associated with the contemporary Orientalist tradition, his visual exploration was far broader. Clothed in the exotic and consistent with the methodology of his genre paintings, he also depicted subjects of history, both specific and general, in monumental and modest formats as well as explorations of historical personalities. This paper considers paintings representative of these categories and more specifically, Jovanović’s interpretation and stylistic response to a range of events and circumstances in the lengthy history of the Serbs at war and at peace, their aspirations, challenges, and triumphs. It further considers the works in the context of a critical period of internal events and concurrent international engagement in, and decisions regarding, the Balkans and, specifically, Serbia. The primary focus of this paper is on the paintings produced in the first phase of Jovanović’s career (1882–1912) although the artist was professionally active until his death in 1957. Jovanović was born in Vršac in the Banat district of Vojvodina, which while part of Hungary, had drawn Serb settlers in increasing numbers since the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. A community of Hungarians, Rumanians, and Serbs, as well as other ethnic groups, it represented a level of prosperity and cultural enlightenment even in the late eighteenth century that surely influenced and facilitated the development of the talented and precocious young artist. His hometown provided Jovanović with initial training in