Novi Sad’s Statues: From Raised Hands to Folded Bodies

Public speaking

Further along the pedestrian streets, Jaša Tomić also had a hand raised. His gesture was smaller, with a finger lifted beside his face and a document held in the other hand. The politician’s bronze figure stood on Dunavska Street, backed by café umbrellas, flowers and a large electric fan.

Between them, the two men supplied quite a lot of public speaking for a pair of silent objects.

Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, the bearded man shown at the beginning of this story, adopted a quieter position. One hand rested on a cane; the other was held behind his back. A poet and physician, he stood at the end of the street named after him, in front of the ornate Bishop’s Palace.

So far, the figures had names, professions and carefully carved clothes. Elsewhere in Novi Sad, sculptors had taken more liberties with the human body.

A different posture

Near the Serbian National Theatre, a white marble dancer balanced above her pedestal. One long leg supported the figure, while the skirt spread out in angular folds.

Laslo Silađi made this monument to Marina Olenjina, who established the theatre’s ballet company in 1950.

At SPENS, the sports and shopping complex, another pale figure sat in a blue pool, its neck stretched out and its head tipped back. Seen on its own, it was hard to say what it was meant to be.

Its surroundings were far less mysterious: a broad staircase, shop signs, and plants crowding one side of the water beneath hanging paper lanterns. The figure offered no explanation, and nobody around it seemed to need one.

Beside a road, a stone figure had folded into a much more compact shape. Its rounded head leaned to one side above thick forms gathered across the body, and its rough surface caught the light. Cars were parked just behind it.

Taken on their own, the sculptures were strange. The city seemed perfectly used to them.

Behind the fortress walls

Across the Danube, Petrovaradin Fortress had its own population of figures.

Artists began turning unused spaces here into studios in 1952, led by sculptor Jovan Soldatović. Behind the fortress walls, places once used by the military became workshops and galleries.

Among the sculptures on the grounds, two rounded forms sat close together beneath the trees. Their heads leaned towards one another, their bodies widening into smooth shoulders and folded lower shapes.

In front of them stood an empty wooden bench.

After dark

On a winter visit, I photographed another figure high above Republic Square: King Peter I on horseback. The horse had one foreleg lifted, its mane falling beside the reins. Both rider and animal were lit against the black sky.

Nearby, horses filled a restaurant wall. Their painted heads bent beneath sweeping manes. On the left, a large horse-shaped shadow faced them.