Summary
Roman Pavić: In search of Cain and Abel
Top Zagreb surgeon Ivan Mandić is a great lover of art, literature and painting. When one day during his walks in the art gallery in Dežmanovo prolas, he saw Celestin Medović's painting Cain and Abel, he knew that he would like to have it on his wall. In search of a painting, he unknowingly enters the world of fake collectors, art dealers, forgers and peculiar characters. Žuđeno Medović is owned by an unusual couple, Vatroslav and Micika, and in their apartments, paintings are found in the most unusual places. Ivan will do everything to find the painting, but in that search he will also learn its fate. Cain and Abel together with another painting by Medović, Hlap, were in the collection of the most famous Sarajevo lawyer of the first half of the 20th century, Nika Andrijašević.
The fate of the painting, of the painter, but above all of the Andrijašević family, is turbulent and tragic, through it the history of our region from the end of the nineteenth century, through the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, both wars and the post-war period, tragedies, fratricide take on a biblical character, as do the characters in the picture itself.
In search of Cain and Abel is a novel about passion for art, about the irresistible attraction of some pictures, about history and its influence on every individual. Roman Pavić carefully, meticulously, with a lot of details, with a touch of humor and tragedy revives a work of art, an era, but also our modern times, portrays human flaws and values, and as in Medović's masterpiece, death and life, love and passion, fear and hope in all their shades appear before us.
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