A. G. MATOS, HIS METROPOLISES AND HIS PROVINCES

A. G. MATOS, HIS METROPOLISES AND HIS PROVINCES The intent of the essay is to analyze Antun Gustav Matos's imaginings of Belgrade, Geneva, Paris, Rome and Zagreb as they have appeared in his travel narratives and miscellaneous prose. Matos's impression of Belgrade was that of the Balkan metropolis, Geneva that of a contradictory unity of metropolitan and provincial, Paris that of a world metropolis of the first globalization and arts, Rome that of the death-permeated city of culture, while Zagreb, like Geneva, is experienced by Matos in a contradictory image of metropolis as the provinces, and vice versa. From a stylistic point of view, Matos's geopolitics is a join of, on one hand, proto-expressionism (as witnessed in the aesthetics of the ugly and simultaneism in the representations of Paris in Dojmovi /Impressions/ and Ogledi /Essays/ from the Paris world exhibition in 1900), and, on the other, the impressionistic-symbolist aestheticism (in the images of landscape and tradition, especially in later periods). From an ideological viewpoint, Matos's geopolitics is a conjunction of postmodernism (saying "yes" to modem civilization and urbanization) and antimodemism (saying "nay" to the effects of excessive urbanization and affirming the provinces, tradition, the rural and the nation).