Jovan Pešić (24 October 1866 in Bukovac,

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...

- 4 January 1936 in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 unt ...

) was a Serbian warrior artist who fought for the liberation of

Old Serbia Old Serbia ( sr, Стара Србија, Stara Srbija) is a Serbian historiographical term that is used to describe the territory that according to the dominant school of Serbian historiography in the late 19th century formed the core of the S ...

and Macedonia at the turn of the 20th century (1903-1908), and later in the Great War. Today he is remembered among as the first modern Serbian cartoonists (the first being

Dimitrije Avramović Dimitrije "Mita" Avramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Димитрије Мита Митриновић; 15 March 1815 – 1 March 1855) was a Serbian writer, iconographer, caricaturist and painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preem ...

), though totally forgotten until the early 2000s.

Early life and work

He was a self-taught artist when he first started to study

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

in a craft shop in

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...

. He studied under Đorđe Jovanović. In 1897 Pešić created an eight-page story in caricature (

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

) showing a sculptor with clay in hand how he created a female figure that suddenly came alive when she began to dance with him. This was inspired by his relationship with Jovanović. More than three decades after his death, Pešić's eight-page strip was first published, in 1969, by the Belgrade's Museum of Applied Arts. Caricatures by Pešić were published in numerous newspapers and popular magazines like ''Vrača pogačaču'', ''Zvono'', and ''Bosnia'' and ''Balkans''. Pešić fought as a volunteer in the

Serbian Chetnik Organization Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation) ...

from its earliest beginning in 1903 until the Young Turk Revolution when the leaders of the Ottoman

Millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

in 1908 made demands on Turkish leadership to improve the status of her Christian population there. After, he went to

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to study, and in 1914 he returned home to join the Serbian army in defense of Serbia. Later, he joined

Serbian army's retreat through Albania The Great Retreat, also known in Serbian historiography as the Albanian Golgotha ( sr, Албанска голгота / ''Albanska golgota''), was a strategic withdrawal of the Royal Serbian Army, which marked the end of the second Serbian ca ...

and then left

Salonika Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

for

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, where he joined the

First Serbian Volunteer Division The First Serbian Volunteer Division ( sr, Srpski dobrovoljački korpus, italics=yes) or First Serbian Division, was a military formation of the First World War, created by Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić, and organised in the city of Ode ...

as a soldier and war painter. During the final months of the war, he worked as a war photographer and was decorated with the

Albanian Commemorative Medal The Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat or Commemorative Medal for Loyalty to the Fatherland 1915 ( sr, Споменица за верност отаџбини 1915), better known as the Albanian Commemorative Medal (Serbian: Алб ...

. He became a member of ''Lada'', the first Serbian art organization and one supportive of diverse artistic innovations of all kinds.

After the War

In the art of sculpture, he performed several realistic portraitures of famous historical figures, including poet

Vojislav Ilić Vojislav Ilić (Serbian Cyrillic: Војислав Илић; 14 April 1860 – 21 January 1894) was a Serbian poet, known for his finely chiseled verse. His poetry exemplifies a classic example of modern Serbian language and features the standar ...

in 1903. Since he spent most of his life in semi-seclusion and without sufficient orders for sculpting work, he was forced to devote himself to draw caricatures, which he published in various newspapers and comic books. At one time he was employed as a draftsman at the Ministry of Construction. His interest in political and social problems was very skillfully transferred to the level of the brutish satire, he reacted against various social distortions, snobbery, and communion.

References

Sources

* Pavlović. 1963: 63–73; Dragićević. 1964: 95—97; Janc. 1970: 121—130. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pesic, Jovan Serbian cartoonists Artists from Novi Sad Chetniks 1866 births 1936 deaths People from Austria-Hungary