In the Croatian art historiography of the Cold-War period, Baroque art stands out as a particular subject of interest. Defined in simplified terms as the art of Counter Reformation and of absolute monarchy, that is to say the art of the Church and the nobility, Baroque art posed a stark contrast to the dominant ideology of communism, with its emphasis on the culture of the peasantry and the workers. One might expect that for art historians this was not likely to offer the best possible conditions for researching local Baroque heritage. However, no comprehensive account of art historiography in Croatia in the 20th century has yet been written--nor has the subject even attracted much interest among the research community as yet. Over the past decade a growing number of texts have appeared dealing with the beginnings of art history on Croatian territory1 or with a number of individual influential scholars who have blazed the trail in promoting art history as a professional practice in the first half of the 20th century. This essay's diachronic comparison will give an initial idea of the shifts in interpretation that occurred from the 1950s through to the 1980s, as the ideologically determined emphases and dominant aesthetic theories of the time, for instance, are far less present in the newer texts than they were in the earlier exhibition, which was organised in a decade crucial to the shaping of socialist Yugoslavia's cultural and visual identity. Abridged Publication Abstract