NASLOVNICA S t a r C i t y  H y p n e r o t o m a c h i a D i s c o r d i a P r o t e u s - V a r i a t i o n s C o n t a c t b i o g r a f i j a hypnerotomachia text D i s c o r d i a text RIGO P r o t e u s text D i s c o r d i a text ZAREZ testovi 

H y p n e r o t o m a c h i a

H Y P N E R O T O M A C H I A

T O M I S L A V Č E R A N I Ć

E M A N A T I O N O F A D E L I C A T E A N D R E F I N E D S P I R I T In a famous book Il cortegiano dating from 1529, in that vade mecum for the men of the world as it was spoken of by G. R. Hocke, its author Baldassare Castiglione recommends twisting every logic: I think everything is rendered morebeautiful ´ dicendo ogni cosa a contrario´, when one speaks in a capsized fashion which, amongst else, seems to be a perfect recipe for avoiding conversational boredom. Of course, all under a condition that collocutors match in educationand personal charm. As it goes, At any cost, one should avoid being simple. A true poet is one capable of connecting the most distant circumstances, says G. R. Hocke and further on quotes Don Emmanuel Tesauro who says: One gifted with sagacity differs from a plebeian-such a man first separates and unites later on. Hence, the true poet is capable of transforming everything into something else-a city into an eagle, a man into a lion, a sparrow into the Sun , says don Tesauro. The wondrous is always beautiful, regardless what kind of wonder is at hand. Even more, only the wondrous is beatiful , claims Andre Breton in his First Surrealism Manifesto. The irregular, i. e. the unexpected, a surprise, an amazement, are essential and peculiar characteristics of a beautiful. This opinion is held by many a thinker and artist regardless of their time, style formation or media of expression. How else should we retell that ancient story of mythic metamorphosis and appalling transformations? How else should we describe this world-men, animals, flora, architecture... and avoid becoming boring and miserably predictive? To be convincing in what is impossible-through performing technique in service of visualizing the impossible and through attractiveness of imagination-is a guiding imperative in Tomislav Čeranić´s both past and recent oeuvre. Čeranić is an author significant of the postmodern and retroavanguard 90ies. Each moment of his work is permeated with an awareness of connection with European tradition, especially with a part biased to fantastic and bizarre. At this occasion, Čeranić comes forth with cycles of pencil drawings upon paper titled Star City and Hypnerotomachia both of which-in similar fashion-primarily reflect author´s strong passion for reconstructing. Thanks to Čeranić´s building fantasy, drawing is affirmed as an independent, unique and thoroughly minute, reasonable creation. In his artwork, fragments and details bear equal perceptional importance as well as a massive contour risen from their condensation into a stylish harmony of a classic picture. In the eclectic creations of both cycles, especially in the Star City, Čeranić takes example by strategies of the 18th century authors who could not realize their ideas in their own time and milieu and whose aspirations were seen as an unfeasible building fancies. Čeranić´s artworks resemble drawings (though nothing of their oeuvres was neither taken nor copied by Čeranić himself!) by the famous master-builders whose premature hi-tech monumental organisms came two centuries too soon. These still intriguing authors trusted the artist´s imagination rather than a perceived reality. By their courageous envisaging of future buildings they have sown an impression of Zaum their contemporaries. They have used language of renaissance and antique much before classicism arose as style formation, which rendered their works truly futurist in their own century (they have been creating futurism before the futurism). In this very manner they have confronted rococo, a dominant style of this gallant century. These creations were reveries of the building fantasts, visions not pretending to be feasible. However, despite the latter, their influence-especially in the 20th century get manifested in Speer´s miles-long projects of the Third Reich architecture. It can also be traced in Soviet party projects from the 20ies and in Malevich building-design laboratory UNOVIS, where -amongst else-flying orbital cities by Ilija Časnik were made. Hence, Čeranić is not inspired by realized and unrealized projects of the architectural edifices or utopian projects of cities and buildings by Etienne-Louis Boulee (1728-1799), Nicholas Ledoux (1736-1806) or by illustrations of the architectural creations or archaeological constructions of the forgotten antique-renaissance style of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) or architectural representation of the alogic perspectives by Atanasius Kircher (1602-1680). All of the listed authors have tried to give rise to a city of future from the forgotten antique-renaissance acquisitions, shapes and details. Čeranić is rather inspired and motivated by their constructing principles and interests reigning their workshops at the time. Leaning on those historic references-in Čeranić´s case-really doesn´t mean hair-splitting hunt for more usable picturesque solutions. It is actually within references bequeathed by the congenial souls and archetypal inspirations springs that Čeranić finds confirmation of the values of his own deliberations and acts. He frequently draws on this heritage, for instructions regarding tehnical articulation of his ideas. Star City, a real city realized in all the plastic and architectural details, is for the most part bound to the Piranesian and Bouleeian vision.I have expected from Ledoux what I have later on found in Boulee and especially Piranesi: an amazingly pompous presentation of an enchanting idea. Yet, Ledoux has taught me a more unrestricted interpretation of certain architectural complexes, a kind of harmonic inversion, a possibility to retell a story in a new maner, says Čeranić. Malevich (Unovis&Vhutemas), Renee Magritte´s 1951 painting Pyrenean Castle (a giant floating rock with a stylized medieval castle on its top), a vision of celestial cities by Emanuel Swedenborg, works by Desiderio Monsu, an Italianpainter from the first half of the 17th century (who according to Hocke´s judgement anticipated romantics and surrealists i. e. elegiac romanticism of the ruins as a dream landscape and overlapping dream pictures, in surrealist sense) all belong to Čeranić´s secondary inspiration source. possible historic references include Jacques Androet Ducercau and Jean-Jacques Lequeu. Speaking of Hypnerotomachia cycle, it is important to mention Bomarzo park. Typology of Čeranić´s efforts was also marked by Kircher´s book Mundus subteraneus (1678) or rather impressive plan and presentation of the subterranean fires given by this Jesuit, archaeologist, linguist, collector of scientific and geographic experimental results , who has tried to penetrate secretes of subterranean world, decipher archaic languages, who experimented with alchemy and music therapy, optics, magnetism... When it comes to Piranesi (ingenious forger of the history, Rembrandt of Architecture, as he was called), Čeranić is without doubt impressed by his tendency towards braver construction combinations, luscious graphic elegance and a special feeling for the classical within architectural sphere and applied arts. Piranesi´s etchings are not mechanic copies of the primary form, neither he makes unbiased alterations or supplements damaged object. Rather, he renovates it in his imagination, providing a new identity. Referential literature holds that many an idea f rom Piranesi´s oeuvre intertwines not only with a modern art dictionary, but also with a post-modern language. For example, long ago it has been said that Piranesi anticipated artworks as an eternal open work, which happened to be stimulating for Čeranić. Also, the latter was moved by master´s partiality in selecting divergent fragments and unhidden irony manifested at their union. Being an artist who realizes his handwriting with his own creative invention, imagination, giftedness, one who´s informed of proceedings of his predecessors and one endowed with a refined taste-Čeranić also happened to have a superb experience of Piranesi, which proved to be stimulating and motivating starting point for subjective interpretations and complicated, anarchic and also non-conflict compilation of the motives, orms, fragments and details. While Piranesi, for example, aspired to recreate the ideal antique form, Čeranić-being a full-blooded postmodernist-sees his possibility in arbitrary, unusual complexes of forms. Liberated from all the modernist scruples, through unbelievable freedom and imagination, he produces imaginative creations made of combinations of different and much diverging fragments and passages, entirely made up or taken over from various remote periods or styles, while his inspiration sphere is but entire architectural history, from the Old Age down to the end of the 19th century. Rise of disproportions, aspiration to the alogic and facing the laws of material in Čeranić´s work can be ascribed to freedom won by postmodernism and besides, to accepting Apeiron´s principles. Within a wide range of various solutions, Čeranić creates wondrous and visually attractive peculiar utopian city. Its utilitarian and programmatic function is replaced by astounding aesthetic play of imagined architectural emblems and details, resulting in appealing fantastic creations, producing a truly impressive impact. By accentuated decorativeness of the architectural plastic and mannerist mobility, Čeranić´s edifices have lost architectural features, becoming a fantastic architecture rather than an architectural plan. It is all about a classic architectural language, that is-about aesthetically and historically limited canonical repertoire of forms, representing a nucleus of pictorial sum. Subsequently, it gets submitted to an operation of fantasmic -syncretistic combinations deprived of demands set forth by reconstructional documenting. All of this happens within context of archaeological credibility and scientific Puritanism. Čeranić stresses formal, purely visual aspect stemming from assemblage methods. He prefers frontal, external vista, monumentality of the simple forms stripped of decorativeness, which-as a construction principle, can also be related to Ledoux and Boulee. Star City is made of architecturalized objects, construction units, kind of marble satellites, which despite everything resemble temples, mausoleums...Their sum creates an illusion of probable communion within elaborated scheme of a possible Urbs, which would however be divested of necessity to exist as Earth-chained Decumanus and Cardo. The latter were oriented towards the Sun-walk, regarding-as put by Italo Calvino-terrain division of the twelve Zodiac houses, so that everytemple and every quarter was allowed to receive an exact influence from the desired constellations. By placing this architecture in a vacuum space of levitation, Čeranić endorses its utilitarian unpurposefulness, extracting it from a context of practical everyday life and usefulness, so it can touch fantasy clouds while abiding in zero gravity, concludes Vinko Srhoj, classifying Čeranić´s endeavours into neo-neo art, art of enjoying the luxury of ended and dead styles. Everything said about the Star City goes-to a large extent -to Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in a Dream by Francesco Collona, by its sharp content, description of mysterious ruins, fountains, antique temples, fun parks, hieroglyphic inscriptions...wood-engraving illustrations ascribed to Mantegna´s school. No doubt, this work assisted Čeranić in cultivating creative fantasizing. Within Hypnerotomachia, Čeranić´s imagination grows in freedom, which can be perceived as emancipation from somewhat severe monumentality deprived of decorativeness previously characterising Star City. However, at times Hypnerotomachia more clearly expresses desire for more vivacious and more sculptural approach that would-in a way -harmonize the theatrical and the archaeological. Hence maybe a need for anthropomorphic formulas when, for example, an architectural construct assumes features of a human head. Besides his intention to remind us of famous master-builders, Čeranić´s drawing creations are primarily emanation of a delicate and refined spirit, while display of the assuredly mastered skills comes as the second. These exciting adventures are reigned by purified forms, order, regularity, dignity, harmony and subordination of parts into a whole, by meticulousness, minuteness and scrupulous analysis of details. All of this happened to be attractive even to a recepient unaware of historical and meta-language background, due to metier standards most often absent from today´s plastic arts.Ivica Župan

drawings, pencil on paper, 70x100 cm