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Although the birth of modern art did not cause the creation of Naive
art, it contributed with its anti-academism to the recognition and
acceptance of that art. However, in Serbia as well, this art was
accompanied by many questions and dilemmas from the very beginning:
from disagreement about its terminological determination (original,
folk, primitive, self-taught, rurally amateurish, naive...) to its
essential definition. All of that could be discussed, but the
freshness and originality of Naive art can not be disputed whatsoever.
It has its aesthetic existence and spiritual role.
Virtual galleries of Naive Art from Serbia:
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The History of Serbian Culture
Courtesy of Porthill Publishers
NAIVE ART
BY KOVILJKA SMILJKOVIC
Although the birth of modern art did not cause the creation of Naive
art, it contributed with its anti-academism to the recognition and
acceptance of that art. However, in Serbia as well, this art was
accompanied by many questions and dilemmas from the very beginning:
from disagreement about its terminological determination (original,
folk, primitive, self-taught, rurally amateurish, naive...) to its
essential definition. All of that could be discussed, but the
freshness and originality of Naive art can not be disputed whatsoever.
It has its aesthetic existence and spiritual role.
Janko Brasic: The Park, 1935, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
Naive art in Serbia was born at the beginning of the
fourth decade of this century, when Janko Brasic, a painter
from the village of Oparic, appeared with his first artistic
works.
In the thirties, the first works of Serbian Naive artists
were characterised by a social note and the bitter overtone of
class inequality. Those works brought a message of discontent
and indignation caused by life's misfortunes.
That is also typical for Janko Brasic, the oldest Serbian
"Naive" artist and the representative of the Oparic circle. He
is an interpreter of the authentic collective lifestyle in the
rural milieu, an illustrator of folk customs and tradition,
and a very good portraitist. During sixty years of his activity,
he created a voluminous opus: several hundred paintings,
drawings, frescoes, icons and sculptures. The basic features
of his creative work are the spontaneity and immediacy of
artistic expression, which is true of the majority of Naive
artists in Serbia. Through genre-scenes and portraits, he has
presented the everyday life of the people from his milieu -
field labour, sowing, harvest, ploughing, mowing, feasts,
legends, customs and tradition. Besides that, his works possess
a kind of immediate narration and authenticity. He was
the model for a group of younger authors who have gathered
around him for years.
Emerik Fejes: Belgrade, 1967, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
Serbia was not spared from great social changes at the
end of the 1940s. The technical, economic and civilisational
development of the country, changes in lifestyle, as well as
the emancipation of personality, all stimulated peasants to
leave the village and "rush" into the cities where, being
imprisoned in "concrete", they mourned for the ambience they
left behind. In the 1950s, a number of self-taught painters
appeared in the urban environment and milieu. Unrestrained by
artistic rules and formulas, they started painting in an
original and honest way, introducing a feeling for the archaic
and mythological in their canvasses.
This was an expansive period in Naive art. Many painted,
but only the most gifted achieved success. A few of these
painters reached the pinnacle of Naive art in Serbia and
worldwide.
Sava Sekulic: Jabucilo and Momcilo, 1974, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
First of all, three painters of extraordinary talent and
imagination, who appeared in 1960s, marked and characterized
Serbian Naive art. They are Milan Rasic, Milosav Jovanovic and
Dusan Jevtovic. They were all of country origins and their
common trait was their search for a lost childhood, folk history
and paradise lost. They belong among the most significant
authors, with an authentic and specific artistic language.
With an abundance of details, a meticulous and plain treatment
of vertical and horizontal surfaces, they have created paintings
which are dramatic and expressive (Jevtovic), impressive,
stratified and mythical (Jovanovic), as well as lyrically
inspired and sensitive (Rasic).
Milan Rasic has presented the life of peasants and collective events
in the village in a vertical format. By means
of colour and traditional iconography, Rasic has given representations
which are full of serenity, of idyllic and paradisiacal decor. His
paintings are architectonically and thematically
located in the milieu of his native region. Those
paintings are full of an emphasised idealization, imagination
and vision, the decorative stylisation of flora and the comprehension
of tradition and customs.
Milosav Jovanovic is one of the rare painters who finds
his motifs in folk mythology. The basic elements of his visual
art are imagination and dreams. His artistic language is
condensed, metaphorical and reduced to gnomons and symbol. He
does not narrate, does not retell, but he rather consults,
reveals and inspires.
Dusan Jevtovic is considered to be the "most consistent
Expressionist painter in our Naive art" by many critics. In
his paintings, life is a celebration. Horses - white, blue and
red - dynamically and rhythmically trot and fly in his pictures,
symbolising strength, spite and heroism. He kept changing the
colouring and plans of his paintings. They ranged from
green to blue tonality, passing later to the burning tones of
blood and new wine. He has sliced surfaces with semicircular
plans - the reliefs of his homeland, for example - and he has
moved the horizon high into the upper part of the painting.
Anujka Maran: The Church Procession, 1964, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
Several centres in Serbia, in which Naive artists have
appeared as groups, should be singled out. Besides the Oparic
circle, a group of painters from the Banat village of Kovacica,
which is inhabited by ethnic Slovaks, is celebrated and
known worldwide. Isolated and hermetic, the ethnic group is
carefully preserved and cultivated, with the moral, social
and historical peculiarities of its ancestors. One could say
that painting there has relied the most on tradition and
folklore. Its representatives are Jan Sokol, Mihal Bires and
Martin Paluska, but the greatest success was achieved by
Martin Jonas. His artistic idiom is condensed in several
refined strokes, in symbol and metaphor which is deprived of
narration, in scene and anecdote. By placing the human being
in the centre of the whole world and presenting life in natural
colours, he has unconsciously created the formula of the
"hypertrophying of extremities". He has halted them and
recorded them in pictures, reducing and simplifying his creative
ideas.
Martin Jonas: Going to Market, 1963, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
In the ethnically Romanian village of Uzdin, not far away
from Kovacica, a group of women also began to paint, exchanging
needle and thread for paintbrush and palette. Art critics
consider them to be rural amateurs, defining their painting as
folklore. Even today the importance of their painting is seen
only in the poetic transposition of the internal lyrical
experience of the world, which is beautified and pure. The
most significant among them are: Anujka Maran, Marija Balan,
Florika Puja, Ileana Olce and others. Their paintings insure
the further existence of folklore and customs.
After the foundation of the Museum of Naive Art in Jagodina (formerly
the Gallery of Self-taught Artists of Fine
Arts) in 1960, a group of painters from Jagodina and the
neighbouring villages was created. The influence of the architecture
of the Morava School and of "Rasic's manner" are
visible in their paintings. The most significant ones among
them are Dobrosav Milojevic, Slobodan Zivanovic and Vladimir
Kepic.
In the sixties, another group of Naive artists emerged in
Vojvodina, in Novi Becej. It was called "Selo" ("Village") and
was founded by Dragisa Bunjevacki. Without having a firm
conception and clear orientation, those enthusiasts, dreamers
and artistic animators encouraged the awakening of artistic
taste and a feeling for art in their region. Besides Bunjevacki,
the significant artists are Janos Mesaros and Tivador
Kosut, characterised by a distinct artistic language.
Outside of mentioned the groups, there are also painters
in Serbia who are separated not only geographically, but also
by different artistic expressions, choices of themes and technical
procedures. Those are: Emerik Fejes, Sava Sekulic, Ilija
Basicevic Bosilj, Sava Stojkov, Pal Homonai and Dobrivoje
Stevanovic.
Milan Rasic: In Front of the Monastery, 1971, Museum of
Naive Art, Jagodina
A special place belongs to Emerik Fejes from Novi Sad,
who, like the French artist Vivenne, painted famous cities in
an extremely original way, with amazing and unreal architecture,
during his imaginary journeys to metropolises. He is
also exceptional because his inspiration did not originate
from life and customs. His paintings look like magical, dream-
like postcards. In his visions he travelled all over the
world, never having to leave Novi Sad.
Sava Sekulic is a painter of stratified originality,
which emanates from every layer of his painting and permeates
his themes, his stylisation and his breath. Many critics
consider him to be a marginal painter, a painter of l'art
brut.
Dusan Jevtovic: Winter Weddings, 1985, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
Ilija Bosilj, a painter from Sid, is particular and
unique in many ways. His work is a combination of the archaic
and modern, on the boundary of naive art and l'art brut, but
of childlike painting as well. Above all, it is the result of
original wisdom, expressed through simplified handwriting and
infantile signs, which appear that way only at first sight. It
encompasses several thematic cycles, among which the most significant
ones are those originating from the Holy Bible, with
motives from Serbian medieval legends and epic poems, and with
scenes from animal life as well. Another important cycle is
"The Iliad", which was not based on Homer's epic poem, but
arose from his own mysterious vision of the world.
Sculpture by Naive artists -as a part of Naive art - is
not an isolated phenomenon. It appeared at the beginning of
1950s. Unjustly pushed into the background for a long time, it
has produced some real master-pieces. Due to its aesthetic
value, it has an outstanding reputation worldwide.
Cherishing monumental plastic art and plastic art of
smaller dimensions and utilizing chiefly wood as an artistic
material (less often stone, clay or metal), Serbian Naive
sculptors have shaped visions of their own, very different
experiences of the world, using their creative imagination.
Among the oldest and the most significant are Bogosav Zivkovic
from Leskovac (a village nearby Stepojevac not far from Belgrade), and
also Milan and Dragisa Stanisavljevic, Ilija
Filipovic, Milovan Mijajlovic Pop, Dragutin Aleksic and
others. Unlike Naive painting -- which has had an evolutionary
path and has lived through a transformation of style, expression
and iconography -- sculpture has preserved its initial
form and expression. Like Naive painting, sculpture initially
appeared in the rural environment. Well-fitted into the ambience,
tradition and heritage, and born out of impulses and a primordial need
to express one's experience of the world, the sculptures of the naive
artists are heterogenous in content, form,
expression, message and theme.
Milosav Jovanovic: Water, 1966, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
Bogosav Zivkovic, with his magical-poetical plastic art,
is an extraordinary phenomenon, and he is certainly the most
significant representative of Serbian Naive sculptors. He has
reeled off his mythical visions on totemic columns, lining up
heads and figures in a harmonious rhythm and accord. In spite
of their disfigured and fantastic forms, his works basically
express both the real world and the world of fairy-tales, of
tradition and of his own childhood. By means of shallow relief
and simple cutter's tools he achieves the dimensional of light
and shadow. He frames certain scenes, figures and clothing
with elements of delicate ornamentation, thus separating them
from the whole and the mass, which is a result of his former
training as a furrier.
In brief, the Naive art in Serbia, as a segment of modern
fine arts, is a living organism in which nothing is final, in
which everything is in movement and development.
The full recognition of Serbian Naive art began with its
presentation at the world exhibition of Naive art in 1961 in
Baden-Baden. In the following three decades, it was presented
at more than one hundred exhibitions abroad, of which the most
significant were the World Triennial in Bratislava, the international
exhibitions in Frankfurt, Munich, Stockholm and
Zurich.
Sava Stojkov: Grandmother Dara, 1977, Museum of Naive Art, Jagodina
A special role in the affirmation of this art belongs to
the Museum of Naive Art in Jagodina, the only institution of
that kind in Yugoslavia and one of the largest ones in the
world. This museum has organised exhibitions of Naive art in
the great world metropolises like Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Rome,
Bonn, Paris, London, Washington and Melbourne.
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