Il bacio di Perasto by Josip Lalić

Abstract

The paper analyzes the painting by Josip Lalić Kiss of Perast, created around 1930 for the Associazione Nazionale Dalmata in Rome, according to its copy in the Perast Museum in Montenegro. Il bacio di Perasto summarizes the artist’s complex biography, his oeuvre and ideological strongholds, as well as the tradition of Italian history painting of the 19th century. While contemporary Italian literature to a certain extent presents this painting as a symbol of historical, ideological and cultural continuity, in this paper it is interpreted as a pseudo-history construct based on the political agenda of the time in which it was created.

Keywords

• Josip Lalić
• Perast
• Josip Visković
• Venetian Republic
• Glorioso gonfalone
• Italia irredenta