Bosilj: Tales From Parallel Universes

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Bosilj: Tales From Parallel Universes

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time in my own life. It seemed completely natural to me that he was regarded as a Master. He was a builder of worlds. But that was before I began studying the history

Ilija Bosilj Bašičević was born in Šid, in what is now Serbia in 1895, and died in 1972

of this field, before I saw that there could never really be a scientific defining of it; that

in the same town. His parents were peasants and he spent most of his life as a farm-

like psychology and psychoanalysis it was really a push-me-pull-you of strong, howbeit

er, having been forced to drop out of school after four years. He resisted conscription

intelligent personalities with names like Jean Dubuffet, André Breton, Otto Bihalji-Merin,

during World Wars I and II as a protest against totalitarianism. When he began to paint,

etc., as each collector-critic tried to redesign and reinvent the flawed wheel that Dubuf-

he assumed the name Bosilj. Although there were attempts to link him with some of

fet himself had continually reinvented for himself. It is strange to have such strong feel-

the generic painters of the “naïve” movement in Yugoslavia, his work was marginal if

ings about something that is essentially undefinable although ultimately describable.

at all relevant to that limited development. The work was certainly not naïve, nor was the man. We have never understood why he, like Anselme Boix-Vives, was never ap-

The field itself has always been there. It has not grown. Our knowledge of something

preciated by Art Brut theorists and collectors as Art Brut. It is time to update historical

that has already existed for as long as we make marks is what has grown. When Dubuf-

misperceptions.

fet continually tried to organize his privileged perceptions of the “common” man there were huge areas of global vernacular art that had not yet been factored into his knowl-

Like many non-western artists he used his own traditional folklore as a jumping off

edge pool. For example, the only African American art known by Dubuffet were the five

point and visionary bedrock for his highly personal and idiosyncratic imagery. His work's

Hector Hyppolite paintings brought back from Haiti by André Breton in the late 1940’s.

themes touched upon what Jane Kallir describes as:

Dubuffet wanted to winnow the collection down to a protean form called Art Brut; an impossible thing to do. He cast out of his kingdom tribal art, folk art, and some African

Biblical stories, scenes from the Apocalypse, episodes from myth and history, depictions

vernacular artists. It is the old story of the mythical traveler’s inn that cut off the limbs

of local animals, birds, and the Dzigura (Sid's main street), and most idiosyncratically,

of travelers so they could all fit in the beds supplied by the lodge. Rather than come up

images of winged people and an idyllic parallel universe called Ilijada. These subject

with a wiser description of a category, a hegemony was created by just eliminating, in

groupings are not discreet categories but rather are interrelated. The flying people are

the broadest strokes, anything that was arbitrarily deemed not to fit.

on their ways to Ilijada. The Dzigura exists both on earth and in Ilijada. Overall, Ilijada is a paradise that balances and opposes the horrors of the Apocalypse. Given the evil that

To be fair, it must be said that a lot of the global work was also unknown to Dubuffet.

Ilija had witnessed in his own life, it is understandable that he was obsessed with such

African American art was just beginning to be noticed in the United States, but it was

dichotomies. His paintings are full of double-headed and two-faced creatures, which

handicapped by being called folk or popular art. Africa did not have the readily available

represent dualisms, not just of good and evil, but of truth and lies, kindness and aggres-

art historical documents or discourse so one could differentiate this special work from

sion, the conscious and the unconscious, the outer and the inner.

traditional primal art. Haiti was just coming into its own with the work of self-taught artists when Breton visited the island. Jamaica kept the collecting of its artists insular

When Ilija Bosilj’s work first came to us I realized I had been looking at it for a very long

and mostly was exclusively collected by its own middle and upper-class collectors. It

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was much the same with Cuba and Brazil. Then there was Asia and Australia. Dubuffet’s

whom Dubuffet did not then or would not now allow into his own original collection.

initial collection was the tip of an iceberg he himself was unaware of at the time.

That is a very simple positive fact. We are not static. We are in motion and like the artists themselves, in constant self-creation.

Anselme Boix-Vives and Ilija Bosilj were two prominent artists who were mislabeled as Naïfs for decades, a pejorative word to begin with. When we look at them today with

Bosilj’s art is at the same time cryptic and universal. His work is music the same way

new informed eyes it becomes obvious that Boix-Vives was a visionary and Bosilj was a

Fellini’s work is music. Not just the work of his composer but the intricate music of

world-builder.

mankind’s Tower of Babel, a subject Bosilj often portrayed. Many of his paintings can be broken into separate images that merit awe as fragments of a complex and huge image

Bosilj did not paint the mundane world. There were other lives he lived inside his work.

library. He painted Jungian scapes. He was literate but eccentric in his literacy, reading

His stories were not about Sunday trips to the farm. He was not psychotic. He too was

Dostoyevsky and the Book of Revelations as grist for his conceptual mill.

visionary, meaning, seemingly whimsical scenes quickly lost their whimsicality when observed more closely. He focused on the Book of Revelations and the two-faced aspects

The art I love most often has a cave wall clarity to it. It isn’t about primitive so much

of human morality and existence. He created a personal realm called the Ilijada where,

as archetypal resonances; primalist, as scholar Robert Farris Thompson described it to

rather than answers he painted questions and conundrums in glorious colors. His was

me. Cave paintings do not ask permission of the art world to exist. They were done on

a fantastical bestiary. He reworked the East European ikons and personalities of ancient

their own immediate terms. Yes, they could celebrate the hunt, but it is the ceremony of

and contemporary history, not by slavishly repeating them but by using them in his

the hunt, the mystery of the hunt; the acceptance of worlds that cannot always be con-

personal visual language.

trolled. Artists are the handmaidens of Nature. The best artists often have an animistic angle to their works.

Art brut was supposed to be the art of the common man, according to its founder. It was about the basic man and who better to be part of that vision then the ex-farmer

There are many artists in our field whose work has the authority of that cave wall. It is

Bosilj who decided that making art would be his ultimate path and who stayed true to

our cave. Ilija Bosilj covers the walls of his canvases with our mysteries. On the walls he

that image from the time he started painting in his 60s to the day of his death.

creates and recreates our original caves.

There are artists like Bosilj throughout the world. It isn’t important to me at this stage that they be labeled anything. Until scholars focus on this global aspect the information is incomplete. But in the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, and with the ABCD Collection in Paris recently making such an important contribution to the Pompidou, the field is changing DESPITE the specious definitions. Lausanne, ABCD and a sprinkling of other museums throughout the world have artists in this field featured in their collections

Randall Morris, Brooklyn, 2021

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The Royal Hunt, 1964 Oil on canvas 27 x 123 inches 68.6 x 312.4 cm IBo 38

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The Accursed Queen Jerina, 1962 Oil on canvas 28.75 x 40.125 inches 73 x 101.9 cm IBo 12

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The Apocalypse: The Fall of Babylon, 1959 Oil and metallic paint on canvas 45 x 46.25 inches 114.3 x 117.5 cm IBo 19

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The Dzigura Takes Wing, 1963 Gouache on paper 19.75 x 29.25 inches 50.2 x 74.3 cm IBo 2

The Apocalypse: The Argonauts, 1962 Watercolor on paper 21 x 29 inches 53.3 x 73.7 cm IBo 9

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Apocalypse, n.d.

Watercolor, pen, and ink on cream woven paper 11.25 x 9 inches 28.6 x 22.9 cm IBo 21

Three Apocalyptic Animals, 1964 Gouache on paper 12 x 10 inches 30.5 x 25.4 cm IBo 40

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The Tree of the Apocalypse, 1966 Ink, graphite on paper 9.25 x 7.5 inches 23.5 x 19.1 cm IBo 41

Dogheaded, 1966 Ink on paper 10 x 8.5 inches 25.4 x 21.6 cm IBo 39

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Angel with an Eagle, 1965 Ink, graphite on paper 10 x 7.75 inches 25.4 x 19.7 cm IBo 47

Angel with a Bull, 1965 Ink, graphite on paper 10 x 7.75 inches 25.4 x 19.7 cm IBo 47

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Golden Ambassador, 1970 Oil and metallic paint on board 23.25 x 18.125 inches 59.1 x 46 cm IBo 18

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From the Apocalypse: Animal with Human Head, 1965 Oil on board 9.5 x 16.75 inches 24.1 x 42.5 cm IBo 8

Dog-Headed Man, 1964 Oil on wood 14 x 23 inches 35.6 x 58.4 cm IBo 36

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Welcoming The Two Faced Rider, 1963 Oil on canvas 26.5 x 39.5 inches 67.3 x 100.3 cm IBo 6

The Fairies' Circus, 1962 Gouache on paper 29.125 x 42.125 inches 74 x 107 cm IBo 4

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Interplanetary Travelers, 1962 Gouache on paper 42.125 x 59.125 inches 107 x 150.2 cm IBo 13

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The Tree from Eden III, 1966 Oil on canvas 35 x 26.5 inches 88.9 x 67.3 cm IBo 17

Apocalyptic Riders, 1970 Oil on canvas 39 x 27 inches 99.1 x 68.6 cm IBo 16

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Wise Men from the East, 1961 Oil on Canvas 19.25 x 27.5 inches 48.9 x 69.9 cm IBo 34

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Noah's Ark, 1967 Oil on wood 31.25 x 47.5 inches 79.4 x 120.7 cm IBo 24

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The Dzigura, 1963 Oil on canvas 27.75 x 65.75 inches 70.5 x 167 cm IBo 27

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Flying People, n.d.

Oil on canvas 18.5 x 25.5 inches 47 x 64.8 cm IBo 14

Mythological Tale with Bird, 1964 Oil on canvas 20.75 x 26 inches 52.7 x 66 cm IBo 30

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Circus 1961 Pencil and gouache on paper 28.75 x 21 inches 73 x 53.3 cm IBo 35

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The Night-Watch, 1967 Oil on canvas 78.25 x 25.5 inches 198.8 x 64.8 cm IBo 23

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The Descent of the Holy Ghost, 1968 Oil on pressed wood 47.5 x 53.5 inches 120.7 x 135.9 cm IBo 22

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Apocalyptic Angel, 1966 Oil on canvas 29 x 35 inches 73.7 x 88.9 cm IBo 25

Apocalyptic Bird, 1967 Oil on canvas 27 x 19.75 inches 68.6 x 50.2 cm IBo 33

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Wise Men from the East, 1962 Oil on canvas 27.25 x 39.5 inches 69.2 x 100.3 cm IBo 32

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Flying People, 1963 Gouache on cardboard 16.5 x 23.5 inches 41.9 x 59.7 cm IBo 20

Legend with Fairy, 1963 Gouache on cardboard 26.5 x 38.25 inches 67.3 x 97.2 cm IBo 26

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Argonauts with Wings, 1963 Oil on canvas 26 x 49.75 inches 66 x 126.4 cm IBo 29

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Birds in Eden, 1959 Gouache on paper 26.75 x 18.75 inches 67.9 x 47.6 cm IBo 31

Two Faced Man Walking On Water, 1961 Gouache on paper 30.75 x 22.5 inches 78.1 x 57.2 cm IBo 3

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Apocalyptic Riders, 1963 Gouache on paper 25 x 36.75 inches 63.5 x 93.3 cm IBo 28

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Ilija Bosilj Bašičević (Serbian 1895-1972)

their use of the Cyrillic alphabet, introduced by the Greek priest Cyril in the ninth century. In

by Jane Kallir

later centuries, the Ottoman Turks descended upon the Eastern territories of Serbia, while the Hungarians and then the Austrian Habsburgs took over much of Croatia. Sid, in the north-

The artist now known simply as Ilija is one of the most enigmatic painters to emerge from the

west Serbian province of Vojvodina, came under Austrian domination in the late seventeenth

land formerly known as Yugoslavia. Born Ilija Bašičević in 1895, he received international ac-

century. The ever-shifting frontier separating the Christian West from the Turks was thereafter

claim in the 1960s and ‘70s under the pseudonym Ilija Bosilj. Despite his impressive exhibition

roughly twenty miles to the east of Sid, and local farmers were routinely conscripted by the

and publication history, however, the Serbian-born Ilija was at the time somewhat overshad-

Austrians to patrol the border.

owed by the more heavily promoted “naïves” from the Yugoslav republic of Croatia. Indeed, his work stands in sharp contrast to the Croatians’ crisply rendered scenes of idyllic peasant

Growing up in this contested terrain, where rule was always arbitrarily imposed from without,

life and farmland. Ilija’s subject matter depicts no recognizable world, but rather a nearly

Ilija developed a fierce independence of spirit and a lifelong disdain for authority. As a boy,

abstract parallel universe concocted by the artist from an amalgam of local history, myths,

he dreamed of becoming a soldier, emigrating to America or apprenticing to a craftsman, but

Biblical tales and imagination. Beyond the arena of squabbling “naïves,” “outsiders” and “folk”

his parents needed his help at home, and so he stayed to take over the family farm. Drafted

artists, Ilija stands alone, as puzzling as he is compelling.

into the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, Ilija employed several subterfuges to minimize his service. Both he and his brother managed to avoid combat by repeatedly changing

The field of “naïve” art originated in the early decades of the twentieth century in part as a

places and then running away. Subsequently, Ilija deliberately injured his leg so that he would

reaction to Western European industrialization, which was killing off rural folk art along with

be hospitalized instead of being sent to the front.

traditional agriculture. At the same time, industrialization fostered feelings of alienation and a yearning for lost authenticity, which the bourgeois intelligentsia found in the work of low-

Despite these desultory military experiences, Ilija was not one to shirk his duty. He was an

er-class painters who, often for financial reasons, had never dreamed of going to art school.

extremely hard worker, rising every day at 3 AM and tending his land and livestock until night-

Eastern Europe, by way of contrast, remained predominantly agricultural. In Ilija’s hometown

fall. A simple lunch of bread, bacon and onions was eaten in the fields; chicken was a treat

of Sid, peasants were all relatively equal in terms of education and occupation. The rifts that

reserved for Sundays. The men on Ilija’s street owned a single pair of proper trousers among

would come to divide them and eventually shred their entire nation derived less from the

them, which they shared around for formal occasions. Nevertheless, Ilija was one of the more

pressures of modern development than from centuries of history as a battleground between

prosperous peasants in his little community, and he was proud. Although he himself had not

forces of the East and of the West.

gotten beyond the local elementary school, he was well-read and attuned to the latest advances in agriculture. Ilija hoped that his two sons, Dimitrije and Vojin, would receive university

Though Croatians and Serbs are all Slavic peoples who speak the same language, Serbia was

educations—something almost unheard of among the local peasant class. But once again,

incorporated into the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in AD 395, whereas Croatia was

politics and world history intervened.

ruled by the Western Roman Empire. As a result, Croatia has since been predominantly Catholic, while Serbs tend to adhere to the Eastern Orthodox faith. Serbs are also distinguished by

After the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the South Slavic peoples (“Yu-

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go-Slavs” in Serbo-Croatian) were united in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes under

extortionate taxation; dissenters were harassed, but less often sent to labor camps. Neverthe-

the rule of the Serbian Karadjordjevic dynasty. However, this union quickly began to fray. In

less, Ilija found himself under great pressure to join the local farmers’ collective, because it was

1934, the Serbian king, Alexander I, was assassinated by the Ustase, a Croatian fascist group

believed that, as one of Sid’s more prominent citizens, he would serve as a role model for

battling for complete independence. During World War II, the kingdom was taken over by the

the others. The political police became a regular presence in his life, and he was repeatedly

Axis powers, with Hitler controlling Slovenia, northern Croatia and Serbia, and Italy occupying

thrown into jail on trumped-up charges. Although he had recovered from his bout with TB, Il-

southeastern Croatia and Montenegro. In cooperation with the Nazis, the Ustase soon began

ija was no longer as strong as he had once been, and his sons finally convinced him to donate

systematically exterminating Jews, gypsies and Serbs. The fascists made a particular point

his land, horses and tools to the collective. Still, Ilija was as stubborn as ever: he refused to

of targeting the wealthier and more educated peasants. In 1941, Ilija and a number of fellow

work the land that was no longer his, and so forfeited his share of the crops. Fearing starva-

villagers were herded into the basement of the local church. Half this group was beaten and

tion, his wife instead labored on the collective, while Ilija took care of their small home. Here-

then shot by the banks of the Danube, while the other half, including Ilija, was released after

after, they lived in near poverty.

a few days without further explanation. Following this narrow escape, however, it was clear to Ilija that his days in Sid were numbered. The Ustase’s police chief, who was married to a

In the meantime, both Ilija’s sons had completed their university educations. Vojin had become

childhood friend of Ilija’s, advised him and his sons to get out.

a doctor, and Dimitrije an art historian, critic, poet and artist (exhibiting under the pseudonym Mangelos). Ilija was not happy with Dimitrije’s choice of profession, for he believed artists

In October 1942, Ilija, Dimitrije and Vojin fled to Vienna, choosing that city because it was

contributed nothing useful to society; “hollow men,” he called them. Regardless, Dimitrije

on a direct railway line. There, they easily found work in an airplane factory. However, after

was to introduce an important new element into his father’s life. During the 1950s, Dimitrije

several months, Ilija was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Told he had only a few months to live,

worked as a curator in Zagreb at the Modern Gallery of the Yugoslavian Academy of Arts and

and worried about his wife and home, he returned to Sid, where he remained under regular

Sciences, under the supervision of the artist Krsto Hegedusic. Dimitrije and Hegedusic shared

surveillance by the Ustase. But before leaving, Ilija fulfilled one of his long-cherished dreams:

an interest in the work of untrained peasant artists, whom they considered more vital than

he enrolled his two sons in the University of Vienna. Vojin and Dimitrije remained in Vienna

academic painters. Unfortunately, this shared interest was to develop into a bitter rivalry.

until 1944, when they joined up with Tito’s partisans to fight the fascist occupation of their homeland. While the partisans represented the only option available at the time, none of the

Just as “naïve” painters were being “discovered” in Western European cities during the period

Basicevic men really supported Tito’s alliance with the Communists. Given their choice, they

between the two world wars, Yugoslavs had in the 1930s organized a group, called “Land,” that

would have preferred to have the Serbian king back. And so, as the old kingdom was incor-

united academically educated artists, including Hegedusic, with untrained peasant painters.

porated into the postwar Communist state of Yugoslavia, Ilija and his family once again found

After the war, Ivan Generalic was hailed as the most important self-taught member of this

themselves at odds with the reigning regime.

group. His hometown, the Croatian village of Hlebine, became something of a Mecca for selftaught artists, who often emulated Generalic’s method of painting on the backs of glass panes,

Tito’s brand of Communism was somewhat gentler than Stalin’s: foreign travel was not im-

a technique that accentuated colors and produced clear, crisp lines. Self-taught painters--in-

possible; collectivization was for the most part imposed not through brute force, but through

cluding Emerik Fejes, Ivan Rabuzin, Sava Sekulic and Matija Skurjeni--also emerged in other

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Yugoslav villages and towns. Unlike the Russian Communists, who took a hard line against

Of course, Dimitrije’s plan backfired. Ilija was not one to keep a secret, so it wasn’t long before

any type of art that did not conform to their brand of socialist realism, Tito’s regime allowed

everyone knew he was painting. And Hegedusic went beyond accusing Dimitrije of conflict

this home-grown “naïve” art movement to flourish. Recognizing peasants as an important

of interest: he declared that Ilija was a fraud. The paintings must have been done by Dimi-

constituency, the Yugoslav Communists had secretly supported “Land” before the war; now

trije himself, or by Vojin, or perhaps by some of Vojin’s patients at the pediatric clinic where

they saw both an ideological counter to “decadent” foreign modernism and a potential export

he worked. The entire Serbo-Croatian art world split into two camps, comprising accusers or

commodity in “naïve”art.

supporters. Finally, Ilija was called to Zagreb, where he proved himself by painting in front of a tribunal of witnesses. Nonetheless, to publicly clear his name, Ilija had to sue the journalists

As the Yugoslav “naïve” movement gathered steam in the 1950s, Dimitrije Bašičević became

who had denounced him; only after he had been vindicated in court did the press formally

one of its most important champions. He organized seminal exhibitions of such major figures

recant.

as Fejes, Generalic, Rabuzin and Skurjeni, first at the gallery Peasants’ Harmony (where he was co-director) and then at the Gallery of Primitive Art (which he co-founded in 1957). Increas-

Although Ilija never received the wholehearted official backing enjoyed by other Yugoslav

ingly, Dimitrije came to challenge Hegedusic’s primacy as the instigator of the peasant artistic

“naïves,” he did go on to exhibit extensively, not just in Zagreb and Belgrade, but in Western

renaissance. In particular, Dimitrije questioned Hegedusic’s claim that he had taught Generalic

European capitals such as Amsterdam, Basel, Bucharest, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Munich, Paris

to paint. Given the nastiness of these professional squabbles, Dimitrije was dismayed when his

and Rotterdam. Ilija was also championed by the two leading scholars of European “naïve”

father Ilija suddenly decided, in 1956, to join the growing ranks of peasant painters. Not

art, Anatole Jakovsky and Oto Bihalji-Merin. Bihalji-Merin, an internationally renowned art his-

only did this present an unneeded complication, but Dimitrije did not even like his father’s

torian who did much to promote the art of his native Yugoslavia, anointed Ilija as one of the

work: compared to the exquisitely crafted, lyrical images of the Hlebine group, Ilija’s paintings

most powerful and original of all the postwar “naïves.” In 1971, the year before Ilija’s death, Sid

seemed crude and ugly. At first, Dimitrije actually destroyed some of them.

established the Museum of Naïve Art—Ilijanum to honor the work of its native son.

Ilija was not to be dissuaded from his late-life artistic vocation, however, and in time Dimitrije

The Yugoslav “naïves” benefited internationally from the same desire for authenticity that

came to appreciate his father’s paintings. Still, Dimitrije faced an undeniable professional co-

fueled the ongoing interest in Western European selftaught artists, but Yugoslav peasant

nundrum. As the Director of the Gallery of Primitive Art, he could not exhibit his father’s work

painters were much closer to traditional folk art than their counterparts in more industrialized

without being accused of a conflict of interest. And Dimitrije knew that Hegedusic, who had

countries. Reverse-glass painting, the technique favored by Generalic and his followers,was

an extensive network of political connections, was just waiting to pounce on him. So Dimitrije

a craft historically used for devotional icons. Furthermore, the passing of the technique from

came up with a plan that was as ingenious as it was, in retrospect, foolhardy: he instructed Ilija

generation to generation in Hlebine, while at odds with Western European notions of indi-

to conceal his artistic activities, and to disguise his artistic identity with a pseudonym. Thus Ilija

vidualism, was in keeping with the communal nature of folk art. In addition to religious icons

Bašičević became Ilija Bosilj, taking his new surname from the Croatian island village of Bosil-

and church decorations, Ilija’s immediate artistic influences would have included embroidered

jna, where the family had a vacation retreat. Dimitrije’s goal was to get Hegedusic to endorse

towels and tablecloths, painted furniture and the woven wall hangings used to insulate homes

Ilija’s paintings on their merits, without knowing the artist’s true identity.

in winter. As or perhaps more important than any visual stimuli, however, was the largely oral

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tradition of Serbian folk tales and history. The stories that Ilija told in his paintings were the

messengers from the perfect world of Ilijada. Depicting animals came naturally to the farmer

same stories that he had told to his boys when they were growing up.

Ilija, and their presence in his work further reflects the duality and interconnectedness of the

Given Ilija’s avowed disdain for artists, it is hard to understand what prompted him to begin

human and natural worlds. Ilija’s paintings might best be interpreted as pictograms: employ-

painting. His conflicts with Dimitrije over their respective artistic careers suggest that an ele-

ing a symbolic language to tell tales that defy explication in words.

ment of father/son rivalry may have been involved. Ultimately, of course, it is impossible to know what drives any person to paint. What is clear is that, from the moment he first picked

In this, there are interesting parallels between Ilija’s work and the art produced by his son Dim-

up a brush, Ilija was obsessed. He painted all day, with the same energy he had formerly de-

itrije. Taking the pseudonym Mangelos from the birthplace of a friend who had been killed

voted to farming. He painted far into the night, despite failing vision. He painted everything

in World War II, Dimitrije created paintings and globes covered with elegantly scripted words

in sight: the walls of his cottage, the beds, the armoire, little scraps of wood and other chance

in many languages and colors. Mangelos’s work (exhibited to great acclaim at the 2004-5

objects. Professional materials—especially canvas and linseed oil--were hard to come by in

Carnegie International) is a metaphorical Tower of Babel, alluding to the ultimate impotence

Sid, so Ilija painted on whatever was at hand. A printmaker friend volunteered to produce an

of language. Both father and son had lived through terrible events that belied any available

edition of silk-screens, but could not sell them; so Ilija painted over those.

philosophical or ideological rationale, and each artist attempted to grapple with the unfathomable in his work. Because Ilija was a self-taught peasant whose sources were the Bible and

Ilija’s oeuvre can be loosely grouped according to subject matter: there are Biblical stories,

Serbian myths, he has traditionally been categorized as a “naïve” artist. Yet his work amply ev-

scenes from the Apocalypse, episodes from myth and history, depictions of local animals, birds

idences the inadequacy of such labels. “Naïve,” after all, suggests a lack of sophistication, but

and the Dzigura (Sid’s main street), and most idiosyncratically, images of winged people and

Ilija was looking to unlock the deepest secrets of life, the mysterious co-existence of good and

an idyllic parallel universe called Ilijada. These subject groupings are not discreet categories,

evil.

but rather are interrelated. The flying people are on their way to Ilijada. The Dzigura exists both on earth and in Ilijada. Overall, Ilijada is a paradise that balances and opposes the horrors of the Apocalypse. Given the evil that Ilija had witnessed in his own life, it is understandable that he was obsessed with such dichotomies. His paintings are full of double-headed and two-faced creatures, which represent dualisms, not just of good and evil, but of truth and lies, kindness and aggression, the conscious and the unconscious, the outer and the inner.

Ilija’s symbolism is complex and at times obscure. For example, some of his paintings contain “keys” that represent flowers or refer to the female uterus, but it is not clear what doors or secrets these keys unlock. Animals often perform allegorical functions. The owl, conventionally, represents wisdom. Peacocks (a bird not entirely exotic in Sid, where one of Ilija’s neighbor kept several) are ambassadors: enchanted princes from the time of the Serbian kings, or

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