Young Woman with Mirror

After the exhibition in February 1931, there was a turning point in Stojanović’s personal life and work: he decided to abandon writing art reviews and teaching in order to dedicate himself fully to sculpting. With a clear understanding of the treatment of the bust, as well as the approach to figurines, he introduced innovations into the appearance of reliefs as well as into interior sculpture. Still, the sitting bronze nude entitled Young Woman with Mirror (1932) reflects the author’s need to return occasionally to his own artistic beginnings, to the days when he attended a sculpting course with Bourdelle and shared with Milo Milunović Modigliani’s and Soutine’s former studio at Montparnasse in Cité Falguillère. The artist’s inebriation at that time with ancient art, Egyptian sculpture, figurines from the Far East, can be recognized in this piece as well. Its direct source can be found in the figurines from Tanagra, whose casualness and narrative quality go deeply into the intimate daily lives of women’s quarters in the ancient world. Still, the sight of a woman at her dressing table was not a theme reserved only for this age: it is a motif which is known to the art of almost every epoch and each epoch stamped its seal on it. “Beauty” in the form of portraits or statuettes, nudes and animals, began to invade the intimate spaces of everyday life, taking on a receptive appearance, a laid back attitude and an impressionistlike shimmering modelling which has the impact of a powerful, pulsing emotion and instills a lifelike aspect to the piece as a whole.