Paja Jovanović is one of the greatest Serbian painters. Uroš Predić, another great painter, is perhaps the only artist from the Serbian art Pantheon, who can match, to a certain degree, Paja Jovanović in terms of the technical excellence and the impact of his paintings on the Serbian people and their culture. (I will write about Uroš Predić in the near future).
Paja Jovanović was a greatly talented, virtuous painter, nationally and internationally very successful, rich, praised and adored, although later in his life his art was criticized and dismissed by some of the 20th century art critics as outdated, dry, staged, detached from real life and a sterile example of the Academic Realism. Whatever the point of view of the scholarly art establishment, the fact is that his art was loved by the people. It has been said that, during a certain period, there was almost no Serbian home that did not have a reproduction on the wall of one of Jovanović's famous pictures. (Nowadays the situation is quite different...)
In his long and prolific life, Paja Jovanovic created a large number of paintings, and although he also gained popularity as the remarkable portraitist, immortalizing many kings and queens, the politicians, the wealthy people and the artists, he is after all best known for his genre-compositions and works with the historical content. Although classified as the works of the Academic Realism, these depictions of the important moments from the national history, and the representations of the folkways, give more or less idealized, almost romantic, view of the history and the reality of life in the Balkans during the second part of the 19th century. Never the less, these images had a great appeal to the people of his time (they still do, as you will probably see for yourself while looking at the pictures below), and rooted themselves deeply within the national psyche. In a way they represented the powerful symbols of iconic, almost epic proportions, offering the guidelines to the national spirit that was, in those days, seeking its visual manifestation.
Serbian Migrations:
The Fencing lesson:
The Wounded Montenegrin:
Return of the Squad of Montenegrins from the Battle:
Fencing Game:
Falconer:
Takovo Uprising:
King Aleksandar Karadjordjević: