Art history and discourse on the centre and periphery
AN HOMAGE TO LJUBO KARAMAN 1886—1971
Since its founding in 1956, the Croatian Society of Art Historians has brought art historians together to promote the importance of our profession through a variety of events and publishing projects. Over the past eight years, we have undertaken a project entitled Croatian Art Historians, which we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international dialogue. This international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum that will stimulate respectful dialogue by bringing together European and international university scholars to share ideas and research on the dualistic centre-periphery paradigm in terms of art history based on work by Ljubo Karaman. Ljubo Karaman (1886–1971) was a Croatian art historian. Karaman’s theoretical and practical work strongly marked the formative period of art history and conservation in Croatia between the two world wars and in the immediate postwar period. His most important contribution to the general history of art lies in his theoretical considerations of the notion of the periphery, the true historical basis of which is the artistic heritage of the Croatian regions. Karaman combined the theoretical results of his research experience in the study of national heritage in his book O djelovanju domaće sredine u umjetnosti hrvatskih krajeva (Über die Einwirkung des einheimischen Milieus auf die Entwicklung der Kunst in den kroatischen Ländern, Zagreb: Croatian Society of Art Historians, 1963). Karaman’s study was an internationally acclaimed contribution to thought on one of the key issues in contemporary art history and cultural history. This issue is still relevant today, as confirmed by the numerous international conferences, research networks, and projects that focus on it. Contemporary critical thought is trending towards the complete deconstruction and overcoming of ideologically manipulated dualism in the valorization of cultural production in the ‘periphery’. Such manipulation perpetuates the paradigms of the relationship between power and influence, which are dictated from the very centres in which they were created. The conference in Zagreb will contribute to a critical reflection on the origins, application, and challenges of the dualistic paradigm, primarily in art history between the Adriatic and Central Europe, which was the focus of Karaman’s work. Ljubo Karaman was educated at the Vienna School of Art History at the beginning of the 20th century; his approach to historical art phenomena was essentially determined by the cosmopolitanism of the Vienna School and its affirmative attitude towards art in the ‘provinces’ (or peripheries). Another important element is his dialectical attitude towards the ideas of early 20th-century Austrian, Italian, Croatian, and Yugoslav art historians. Likewise, as a conservator, Karaman was delimited by the norms of the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy (k. k. Central Commission für Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale), which was marked by the concepts and methodology of the new conservation movement in central Europe. In the field of conservation in the 20th century, Karaman was responsible for connecting European centres and the Croatian periphery. Karaman’s conservation work took place during a period of great changes and challenges, not only in the field of cultural heritage protection, but also in the field of politics. After the Italian occupation of Dalmatia in 1941, Karaman moved from Split to Zagreb, where he accepted the position of director of the State Conservation Institute during the Independent State of Croatia. He remained in this position in the new, socijalist Yugoslavia until 1950, when he retired. His active and critical role in three different political, economic, and ideological structures still encourages reflection on the possibilities and achievements of art historians, conservators, museologists, and experts in related disciplines in the scientific interpretation of heritage and the protection of monuments, in ‘primitive’, local parochialist, or nationally ideologised environments, i.e. under totalitarian regimes and social systems. This simultaneously begs the issue of the freedom of art historians/conservators and the conscientious, professional, and impartial performance of their duties.
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
peer-reviewers: Milan Pelc and Marko Špikić
editors: Franko Ćorić and Martina Petrinović
publisher: Croatian Society of Art Historians, 2024.
ISBN 978-953-6089-57-4
Cristiano Guarneri, Ines Ivić
Different perspectives on the centre-periphery paradigm: Karaman and Castelnuovo-Ginzburg in comparison
Karla Papeš
What is the Circulation Centre of Early Modern Fortification Knowledge?
Giuseppe Andolina
Centre vs Periphery in the Stato da Mar: art and architecture in the public space of fifteenth-century Dalmatia and the examples of Trogir and Šibenik
Laris Borić
The innovative nature of Karaman’s concepts of the peripheral and provincial and their application to the architecture of the Dalmatian Cinquecento
Petar Strunje
Whose monuments? Interpreting mosque-to-church conversion in Dalmatia
Beatrice Tanzi
The double “territorialization/peripheralization” of the Istrian and Dalmatian dioceses
Vladimir Peter Goss
Ljubo Karaman and the art of Croatian space
PDF file download
Katja Mahnič
France Stele (1886-1972), Monument Protection Office in Ljubljana and the Question of Method
PDF file download
Ivan Braut, Krasanka Majer Jurišić
Karaman and Szabo on “descended value” of monuments and preservation of historical character of Šibenik and Rab
PDF file download
Sigrid Brandt
Creative monument preservation and continuing to build on monuments
PDF file download
Zoi Godosi
Periphery, Province, Borderline: the case of a local “Art World” in Florina (Greece)
PDF file download
Mina Radovanović
Painting the periphery for the centre: orientalist works by Paja Jovanović created for western audiences
PDF file download
Angelo Maria Monaco
Refining a vernacular idiom. A focus on 14th and 15th centuries limestone Sculpture in Salento, through the looking glass of Scultura del Cinquecento in Italia meridionale by Francesco Negri Arnoldi
PDF file download
Stephanie Peršić
Karaman’s paradigm through the analysis of sacral iconography of the 17th and 18th centuries on the territory of the Diocese of Poreč and Pula
PDF file download
Petar Prelog
Centre and periphery in the interpretations of Croatian modern art
PDF file download
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Croatian art historians Art history and discourse on the centre and periphery — An homage to Ljubo Karaman (1886 – 1971)
Zagreb, Croatia, 19–21 May 2022
HOST: Croatian Society of Art Historians
VENUE: Trg Bana Jelačića 3/1, Zagreb (DAZ, UHA)
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Franko Ćorić, Department of Art History Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Ljerka Dulibić, The Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Jasenka Gudelj, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University Venice
Zvonko Maković, president of the Croatian Society of Art Historians
Predrag Marković, Department of Art History Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Milan Pelc, Institute of Art History, Zagreb
Martina Petrinović, secretary of the Croatian Society of Art Historians