KULTURA / CULTURE
back in 1873. If we imagine that bygone time of strict patriarchal rule in Serbian bazaars, we will succeed in understanding just how courageous this lady paint- er was to nurture her individuality in a world of men. Each energetic stroke of her brush testifies to life be- ing short, and to the need for it to be filled with deep emotions, just as many winter preserves are set aside in autumn, in order to make it through the temporary death of nature. A strong dose of a special kind of patriotism is ev- ident in Nadežda’s paintings, because the thickly ap- plied oil paint seems to replicate the landscapes of her native Morava Valley. By combining browns and dark tones, she conjures up the atmosphere of a Serbian village on the eve of winter or the stillness of night. Her impressionistic dance of light turns into an expressive assertion, melt- ing away forms so that the real becomes physically sur- real, though charged with internal content. And that charge reminds us of the preserving of seeds that will germinate with the arrival of spring, while they now save their strength for the big changes to come. Nadežda knew how to place pure blue and pure yel- low next to one another, in a desire for that conflict to give birth to something. That would sometimes be a battle cry against a coming storm, while it would some- times be the harmony of opposites embodied by au- tumn. The drama that’s also contained in this season is experienced through the swift movements of the painter’s hand. The dynamic atmosphere of her paint- ings hints at the untimely demise of this heroic wom- an, who died at the front early in World War I (1915). A fellow painter of Nadežda who was 20 years her junior, Sava Šumanović (1896-1942), who hailed from the flatlands of Šid, also didn’t enjoy a happy fate. A loner from childhood, with poor health, it is as though
HUSHED SCENES AND SADDENING HUES Autumn as the true habitat of the soul When the waning summer paints the whole of nature in tones of golden yellow, adding touches of earth and copper, the whole of Serbia becomes like the painting canvases of Nadežda Petrović, Milena Pavlović Barili or Sava Šumanović In early autumn, the grove-covered region of Šu- madija sparkles like a Vincent Van Gogh Wheatfield, while the province of Vojvodina resembles a Turner scene, where a vaulted sky and open seas merge dra- matically. The riverbanks of the Sava, Danube and Kol- ubara take on a calming appearance, like in the works of Modigliani, where secret erotic forces simmer. Hills and mountains take on the shadows of a Rembrandt portrait, depicting the shadowy psychology of our territories. In this season that follows the unrestrained and care- free summer, there is also melancholy, with a deep sense of sadness and hopelessness. And yet, those gloomy thoughts can be dispelled through a yearning for life, the kind that has been intoned by the aforementioned artists, as well as many others, since time immemo- rial. It is a great misconception that the language of painting is incomprehensible to layfolk: one just has to allow the heart to interpret the painted messages. There is thus nobody who would misinterpret the works of Nadežda Petrović, who was born in Čačak
Sava Šumanović, Pozna jesen (1934), ulje na platnu, Galerija „Sava Šumanović“ u Šidu
Sava Šumanović, Seoska ulica u jesen (1933), ulje na platnu, Galerija „Sava Šumanović“ u Šidu
60 | Jesen » Autumn
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