Poljubac Perasta Josipa Lalića

Abstract

The paper analyzes the painting by Josip Lalić Kiss of Perast, created around 1930 for the Associazione Nazionale Dalmata in Rome, according to its copy in the Perast Museum in Montenegro. Il bacio di Perasto summarizes the artist’s complex biography, his oeuvre and ideological strongholds, as well as the tradition of Italian history painting of the 19th century. While contemporary Italian literature to a certain extent presents this painting as a symbol of historical, ideological and cultural continuity, in this paper it is interpreted as a pseudo-history construct based on the political agenda of the time in which it was created.

The paper analyzes the painting by Josip Lalić (Giuseppe Lallich, Split, 1867 — Rome, 1953) Il bacio di Perasto created around 1930 for the Associazione Nazionale Dalmata in Rome, according to its copy in the Perast Museum in Montenegro that was donated to the museum in 2004. Since the painting depicts the burial of the Venetian flag under the altar of the parish church of St. Nicholas in 1797 in Perast, the paper points to the role of Glorioso gonfalone in this city during the Venetian rule (1420 ‒ 1797). The flag was ceremoniously buried several months after the decline of the Venetian Republic, when the people of Boka Kotorska felt regret over the loss of a secure state and uncertainty over the future of their region, which Austria, Russia and France were fighting for. The paper gives the context to the burial of the flag and the speech of Captain Josip Visković romanticized in recording a hundred years later. The words from that transcript ‒ ti con nu, nu con ti later became the motto of the irredentist and fascist ideology. The artist’s friendship with irredentists, as well as the thought and work of Gabriel D’Annunzio, influenced the painting. In this context, the painting did not only express nostalgia for Serenissima, but was a symbol of Italia irredenta and the hegemonic policy of fascist Italy. Il bacio di Perasto summarizes the artist’s complex biography, his oeuvre and ideological strongholds, as well as the tradition of Italian history painting of the 19th century. While contemporary Italian literature to a certain extent presents this painting as a symbol of historical, ideological and cultural continuity, in this paper it is interpreted as a pseudo-history construct based on the political agenda of the time in which it was created.