The lecture “La Grande Bellezza: Journal of Uroš Predić” by Snežana Mišić, PhD, museum advisor and deputy director of the Gallery of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad, organized as part of the “Inspired by Italy” exhibition, was held in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Thursday, September 5th, 2024. starting at 7 p.m.At the beginning of the program, Tatjana Mihailović, PhD, museum advisor of the National Museum Kraljevo, greeted the audience and introduced the guest.
Snežana Mišić, PhD, first referred to the term Grand Tour, which includes an organized trip through Italy, with a precisely determined route, undertaken, as a kind of artistic pilgrimage, by artists and intellectuals from Europe, beginning in the 18th century and throughout the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century, especially after the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among these passengers were many artists from Serbia, among them Uroš Predić. During this trip, which took place from April 8 to May 13, 1909, Uroš Predić kept a diary, in which he described in detail the places and monuments he visited on that occasion. The diary has 143 pages and has not been published to this day, and as an original manuscript it is kept in the Uroš Predić Legacy at the National Museum in Zrenjanin.
Snežana Mišić, PhD, then presented to the audience most of the places that Predić visited and the many churches, monuments and works of art that he saw on that occasion, citing the artist’s remarks and comments from the Journal. He visited Pompeii, Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Pisa, Florence, Padua, in order to return home from Venice by boat. He went on this great trip as an already formed and established artist, because the original plan from his youth, related to the trip, was not realized in his time. In this sense, his experience of Italian art and heritage is seen through the prism of a mature artist who is often very analytical.