Mestrovic’s Chapel

In Ivan Mestrovic another branch of the Slavic race has brought forth a genius fully as original as Archipenko: Mestrovic began life as a shepherd in Dalmatia, and at 18 was apprenticed to a marble-worker in Spalato. The western world has seen exhibitions of his work at Rome (1911), London (1914), Paris (1919). His greatest feat to date is the statuary, presented by the sculptor to the Serbian Government, for the colossal national temple at Kossovo, where the Turks crushed the Serbs in 1389. The figures for this project were to have been exhibited in America, but this was prevented, and the groups are now in Belgrade until the temple can be erected.

Mestrovic’s latest tour de force is a great memorial chapel at Cavtat, near Ragusa, on the Dalmatian coast of Yugo-Slavia. It is dedicated to a prominent Serbian family named Racic, of tragic history. Mestrovic was the sole architect, sculptor, woodcarver, mosaic worker, decorator. The chapel is an octagonal, domed structure, with trausepts, surmounted by a bronze angel on a cupola. The decorations are sculptures, reliefs, bronze doors, mosaics, depicting angels, madonnas, crucifixes, caryatides, in a peculiar, archaic style partaking of Egyptian, Byzantine and Italian primitive influences.