“Sad svejedno da li je istinito – glavno da je logično” Društveno angažirano umjetničko djelovanje Mice Todorović / “Now, it doesn’t matter if it’s true – the main thing is that it’s logical” Socially engaged artistic work of Mica Todorović

Abstract

In the Yugoslav cultural and artistic space between the two world wars, engaged artistic activity with a pronounced social function represents a reaction to complex and generally unfavorable socio-political circumstances, economic crises, social misery, and moral agony. Although it is possible to talk about the uniformity of artistic ideas and phenomena in Yugoslav social art in the period in question, in order to understand them, it is necessary to keep in mind the peculiarities of local communities (republics) and specific socio-political, economic, and cultural and artistic constellations that directly caused different forms of resistance through art. The text deals with the analysis of the cycle of drawings by the Bosnian-Herzegovinian artist Mica Todorović (1900-1980) from 1933 and its setting in thematic contexts. The drawings represent a solitary example of socially engaged artistic activity in her entire artistic opus. These drawings will be interpreted in relation to the main trends of Yugoslav and international art of the period, and special attention will be paid to stylistic and thematic similarities and differences with the artistic expression of the Association of Artists “Zemlja” (1929-1935). The text, a segment of the broader doctoral research on socially engaged activity in fine arts, architecture, and synthetic theater in the interwar period in Bosnia and Herzegovina, opens new possibilities for interpreting and evaluating Bosnian-Herzegovinian social art in the said period.