The sculptural works of Ivan Meštrović have a very strong presence in public spaces, and the first public monument that Meštrović ever made was erected in Split in 1905. However, the close relationship of Ivan Meštrović and Split started as early as 1900. The artistically talented but uneducated 17-year-old Ivan Meštrović-Gabrilović had his first lessons in carving at the workshop of the master craftsman Pavao Bilinić in Split. In the same workshop, a few years later, Meštrović made a plaster model for a monument to Luka Botić, when he was staying during the holidays in Split. At that time, he was a student at the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts (1901-1906). Monument to Luka Botić (Vienna, 1905) shows a Croatian poet and politician of the 19th century, who united in his literary work the nationalist aspirations of the Illyrian Revival movement and the expression of European Romanticism. The fact that so young an artist won this public commission (he was only 22) should be ascribed to the great artistic success of Ivan Meštrović as member of the Association of Fine Artists of Austria, the Secession. The fate of this public monument is marked by the numerous places in which it has resided: Marmontova poljana in 1905 (today’s Trg Republike, better known as the Prokurative); the first Marjan Peak (1921); in front of the Croatian National Theatre (1952) and finally its current place on Marjan Hill in front of the Meteorological Observatory (from 1970).
The growth and development of the city of Split and the improvement of its infrastructure were of great importance to the sculptor. For example, the long-awaited construction of what was called the Lika Line, a transport link between Split and Zagreb, was solemnly commemorated by the unveiling of the Monument to Marko Marulić (Zagreb, 1924). Marko Marulić (1450-1524), Croatian man of letters and humanist, is today considered the ‘father of Croatian literature’. In his literary works he promoted the Christian moral values in the spirit of Christian humanism. For the setting, Meštrović chose a lively city square framed by the Late Renaissance Milesi Palace, which gave his sculpture a grand backdrop.
Just like the statue of Marko Marulić, Meštrović made up his mind to donate the plaster model for the Monument to Gregory of Nin (Zagreb, 1927) to the city of Split. He said that this was primarily for “patriotic reasons” and “because Split was the place in which this statue primarily belonged” and the place where he was to be put “had to be close to the cathedral, because that heightened his significance”. Today a recognisable symbol of Split, Meštrović’s almost 8-metre tall Gregory of Nin is an important monument to a person whose historical role and meaning of which was to change during the course of history: historical personality, then national myth and finally tourist attraction. But the monument whose rubbed-smooth thumb is believed to give good luck hides a turbulent fate that is completely unknown to foreign visitors. It was initially put up in 1929 on the Peristyle, the imperial square of Diocletian’s Palace, but during the Second World War, the Italian occupying authorities decided to disassemble it (in 1941). It was put in its current position, above the Golden Gate, in front of the entrance to Diocletian’s Palace, only in 1954, on a low plinth that puts it closer to the daily passer-by.
Ivan Meštrović showed his love for Split in the desire to settle down in the city, building his villa at Meje, today’s Meštrović Gallery and with the renovation of the neglected Renaissance castello of the Capogrosso family, in the immediate vicinity, today known as Meštrović’s Crikvine-Kaštilac. Both of these properties, by the artist’s wish and thanks to his generous Deed of Gift to the Croatian People of 1952 became museum establishments in which the life and work of Ivan Meštrović is presented with the best of his artworks. In addition to the public sculpting and the large number of works of art displayed in museums bearing his name, Meštrović’s works are to be found in the permanent displays of almost all the art museums in Split, such as the Archaeological Museum (Bust of the Rev. Frane Bulić), the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments (History of the Croats), Split Municipal Museum (Bust of Marko Marulić), Gallery of Fine Arts (Leo Tolstoy, Poor Mara, Portrait of Ana Trumbić, Innocence) as well as in ecclesiastical structures – the Baptistery of St John and the cloister of the St Francis Monastery (a funerary monument to Dr Ante Trumbić).
Even when Ivan Meštrović had moved for good to the USA, where he taught sculpture at the universities of Syracuse (from 1947) and Notre Dame (from 1955), he did not cease to care for the artworks and properties in Split that he had donated, constantly indeed enriching them with new works. Moved by nostalgia and patriotism, he paid heed to the many requests that arrived from various regions of Croatia, including Split, and worked tirelessly on plaster models for public monuments. In 1954, for instance, he did the statue of St John the Baptist (Syracuse, NY, 1954) for the Split Baptistery. A year earlier he gave consent for a second cast to be made of the Zagreb public sculpture Mother and Child (Zagreb, 1930), to be placed in front of the newly opened maternity hospital for he was “much gladdened by any progress in Split, in whatever field”. The double move of the medical establishment meant that Meštrović’s statue was also shifted twice (in 1980 and in 2008), and it stands today by the entrance to the Split Maternity hospital at Firule.
Zorana Jurić Šabić
