Friday Bottom #20

Banovic Strahinja was a mythical Serb hero and this is his bottom. I am assuming he still IS a mythical hero and hasn't suddenly become real. The Serbian Government gave this piece to the V&A back in 1915, following an exhibition of the artist's work.

The artist was Ivan Mestrovic and you can see the Rodin influences in the full piece (which is here in my folio). He moved to Paris where he met Rodin and became good friends with Jelena Dorotka.

He is very well known for his religious sculptures so he was fairly used to mythical subject matter.

I particularly like the fact that this subject is a real part of the stone, melding the coldness of the marble with the warmth of the figure.