he wanted to make up for everything with his paint- ing. He sought out his own poetics voraciously, as if ravenous ahead of the scarcity of winter. He tried his hand in the waters of Cézanneism, post-cubism, con- structive expressionism and neoclassicism, finally set- tling on poetic realism, like a tired leaf carried on an autumn gust. It was then (in 1930) that a health reasons compelled him to return to Šid from Paris, where he’d achieved no- table success. Harmonising with the pulse of this tran- quil place, he would often paint landscapes that made his works recognisable, along with his cycle of blonde beauties called The Bathers or The Šid Women. “That thick material, calming colour code, serene form – on- ly at first glance” – these are the characteristics of Šu- manović’s Šid period. Everything blossoms from with- in those hushed scenes, including sadness for his life’s bygone summer. Through the melancholy of autumn on his canvases, one can forebode this painter’s premature demise: Šumanović was executed in 1942 in Sremska Mitrovica, which was then called Hrvatska Mitrovica. If there was anyone who could have had the middle name “sadness”, that would have been Milena Pavlović Barili, who was born in Požarevac in 1909. But her sad- ness is that of the sumptuous beauty of a deciduous forest during a sunny September, when the swelter- ing heat has somewhat dissipated. As it remains writ- ten: “the fate of Barila would be dealt with by novel- ists, art historians and the tabloids of the capital, and her real significance was long hidden by false words and tall tales”. She wasn’t served well by either her extreme beau- ty or her charm, though she captivated the Europe- an aristocracy with them. She painted tirelessly, and when she had her fill of that, she authored poetry in four languages. Barili didn’t wait to see the destruction of Europe during World War II, having relocated to the U.S. in 1939. And there she hung out with esteemed mem- bers of the art world, as she also did in Barcelona, Se- ville, Madrid, London, Paris, Rome, Oslo... Despite fall- ing fatally in love with a Cuban pianist, she nonetheless married an aviator 12 years her junior, Robert Gosse- lin, with whom she lived until her death in 1946. And if her works are to be believed, she lived with melan- cholic longing. Woven into her every picture is her sad and brooding likeness, even in the covers of the fash- ion magazines Vogue and Town and Country that she illustrated. According to critics, “the pictures that she created in America, as well as the poems that she wrote there, were interpreted as a sigh of nostalgia and long- ing for her homeland.” If deep sadness in expression and colouring rep- resent the trademark of these three painters, then au- tumn was their true habitat or the state of their soul. It gave them the power to delve deep within them- selves and face their fears and hopes, just as they be- came great and historically recognised artists. For us
ordinary folk, being overwhelmed by sadness at the be- ginning of autumn shouldn’t be particularly worrying, as it will soon pass. And until then, let’s enjoy walk- ing, socialising, not caring about the changing seasons, apart from when the scent of roasted chestnuts pro- vides a pleasant hint of the coming winter.
Autumn » Jesen | 61
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