Ilija Bašičević, later Ilija "Bosilj" Bašičević ( sr-cyr, Илија Башичевић Босиљ;

Šid Šid ( sr-cyr, Шид, ) is a town and municipality located in the Srem District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It has a population of 14,893, while the municipality has 34,188 inhabitants. A border crossing between Serbia and ...

, July 18, 1895 - May 14, 1972) was a painter; a classic of

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

outsider art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrate ...

Biography

Bašičević was born in Šid, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now in

and died in 1972 in Šid. His parents were

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...

farmersIlija Bosilj Basicevic at Galerie St. Etienne
/ref> and he only received about four years of school before starting work on the farm. He left the country during both

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

to escape conscription and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

to avoid the

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Move ...

. He resisted

collective farming Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

and was periodically jailed on dubious charges by the political police. He began painting in 1957. His first major showing was at a Belgrade gallery in 1963, and was very controversial because of Bašičeviċ's political stance. The painter took the surname "Bosilj" as a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

for the showings. From the 1960s to the 1980s, his work was popular in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, often showcased in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

and Belgrade but also

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and

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. He donated his collection of paintings as a legacy to his native town. He died in Šid in 1972. Ilija Bašičeviċ's son Dimitrije Bašičević was an art critic and became involved in a "

naïve art Naïve art is usually defined as visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing). When this aesthetic is ...

" movement started by the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

which rejected "decadent"

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, and the father was inspired to paint. His son disapproved at first, because Ilija's work was not as precise or refined as the official Hlebene School's Reverse painting on glass techniques. Bašičeviċ's work is partially art brut and partially

and most of his work is oil on canvas. Much of his work dealt with religion and folk legends and two-headed and two-faced creatures are a common theme. Unlike the traditional peasant style of his region, Bosilj created a flat two-dimensional world often inhabited by men and demons, snakes, fish, anthropomorphic creatures, and spacemen. He gave many of his paintings to found an art museum in his home town in 1970.

Artistic Style

Ilija’s oeuvre can be classified into a few thematic units. Most numerous are the presentations of Biblical, especially Old Testament motifs. Next were motifs inspired by epics, legends and myths followed. In the Iliad Cycle, which has nothing in common with the famous Homerian epic but is related to the painter’s name, there are frequent artistic allusions to the real world and fights against human foolishness, duplicity, and hypocrisy. Then, he portrays the cycle with figures of real and imaginary animals. A significant part of his oeuvre includes the flying astrological beings. Ilija’s works are not descriptive, but are allegorical with multi-layered and symbolical context. He does not make difference between the presentation of an apocalyptic angel or modern astronaut, kings of Apocalypse and kings of Iliad, between a simple and an apocalyptic bird etc. Ilija creates the anti-illusionistic, the abstract. He does not use perspective; he eliminates reminiscences; he generalizes and prefigures by using symbols. Two-headed beings denote the duplicity of everything presented. In Biblical scenes or Serbian myths, legends and epics, the dynamics and morale prevail, while in scenes from Iliad we find humor, irony and grotesque. In these presentations, the artist tried to demythologize Biblical heroes and historical characters. His works are not descriptive, since they are the product of a self-taught visionary and instinctive neo-primitive. He most often used allegory with a multi-layered connotation. The mere names of his paintings, like in Sekulić and Jakić, help us to get acquainted with his world full of personal symbolism. He created in anti-illusionist and abstract manner, eliminated reminiscences and generalized due to his purely authentic understanding of the realistic. Ilija’s dynamic treatment of the colored structure points to outstandingly modern dimension of his pictorial expression. The backgrounds in his paintings are often empty and flat, while rhythmically sequenced figures are floating, animated with wavy lines. The colour is raw, of visible ductus. Golden background is characteristic in the paintings of the special cycle.N. Krstić, ''Outsider Art in Serbia'', MNMA, Јагодина, 2014, pp. 56-63

Exhibitions and awards

He had exhibitions in the country and abroad and was awarded many times. He is the greatest representative of art brut in Serbia. On the Third Triennial of Naive Art in Bratislava in 1972, Ilija was posthumously awarded special recognition by an international Jury for his achievements in the domain of naïve and marginal art. The greatest collection of his paintings is in th
Museum Ilijanum
in Šid (Serbia). He is a worldly classic.

Gallery

Bašićević Bosilj Ilija, Dolazak kosmonauta na mesec.jpg, ''The Arrival of Astronauts on the Moon'', 1965
oil on canvas, 50x67cm
MNMA, Jagodina Bašićević Bosilj Ilija, Mis Ilijade.jpg, ''Miss Iliad'', 1969
oil on fiber board, 115x120cm
MNMA, Jagodina

References

Literature

* Н. Крстић, Наивна и маргинална уметност Србије, монографија, МНМУ, Јагодина, 2007 * N. Krstić, Outsiders, catalogue, MNMU, Jagodina, 2013 * N. Krstić, Outsider Art in Serbia, MNMA, Јагодина, 2014

External links

* http://www.artnet.com/artist/424457426/ilija-basicevic-bosilj.html * http://www.basicevic.net/ * http://www.rawvision.com/articles/ilija-1895–1972
Ilija Bašičević Bosilj - Museum of Naive and Marginal Art, Jagodina, Serbia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basicevic, Ilija Outsider artists Naïve painters 1895 births 1972 deaths People from Šid 20th-century Serbian painters 20th-century Serbian male artists Serbian male painters