European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies

A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art The Oxford Dictionary of Art Further reading

Virius, Mirko

A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art | 1999 | | Copyright

Virius, Mirko (1889–1943). Yugoslav naive painter, born in the village of Djelekovac in Croatia, where he worked on the land. He painted from his schooldays but did not start his serious career as an artist until 1936, when he began working with Franjo Mraz and Ivan Generalić from the nearby village of Hlebine, the centre of Yugoslav naive painting; together they were known as the ‘Hlebine Trio'. Virius became a friend of the peasant writer Pavlek Miskina and belonged to the Leftist Peasant Party. Because of his Communist views he was placed in a concentration camp in Zemun after the outbreak of the Second World War and he died there in 1943. The spirit of social consciousness showed strongly in his paintings, which were mainly on peasant themes. His style is somewhat more naturalistic than that of many naive painters, with a fairly orthodox sense of scale and perspective, but his colours are strong and simple.

Virius is generally regarded as the second greatest painter of the Hlebine School and within his own field some critics have ranked him as the equal or even the superior of Generalić. Unlike Generalić he preferred to work in oils and canvas rather than in a glass-painting technique. His work was first shown outside Yugoslavia at the São Paulo Bienal in 1955, when the impression it made was so great that its sale was forbidden by the Yugoslav state. Since that time it has been exhibited in many countries.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-ViriusMirko.html

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-ViriusMirko.html

Learn more about citation styles

Virius, Mirko

The Oxford Dictionary of Art | 2004 | | Copyright

Virius, Mirko. See Generalić.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-ViriusMirko.html

IAN CHILVERS. "Virius, Mirko." The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-ViriusMirko.html

Learn more about citation styles