The themes to which Meštrović resorted in his hardest moments this time were based on his own experience. The superhuman suffering, impotence and injustice were embodied in the trials of Job and the death of Christ in the drawings Job and the Deposition. The figures of prophets, Prophet I and Prophet II, in the midst of the dreadful spiritual and material destruction still preached the need to preserve the highest human values. Scenes dedicated to the Resurrection, like the drawing Women at the Tomb and Noli me tangere reveal faith in life and smoulder like a glimmer of hope in conditions at the edge of human existence. A year later he turned these drawings into the wooden reliefs Resurrection (Lausanne, 1943) and Do not touch me (Lausanne, 1943), continuing the work on “the history of Jesus of Nazareth in wood” that he would later display in the chapel of Holy cross in Crikvine-Kaštilac.
(Z. J. Š.)