I n his childhood, Milan Tucović sculpt- ed heads from clay that he found in streams and tried to bake them. His at- tention was attracted to the beauty of nature and the reproduction of a picture by Édouard Manet on his sister’s t-shirt. He grew up in Gorobilje near Požega, where his parents were farmers without artistic talent. That’s why he says that in painting he is his “own ancestor”. - As a child, I wasn’t aware that I al- ways had an artistic view of the su najdublje moje, u koje sam najvi- še verovao dok sam ih slikao. Kako se bližim kraju slikanja platna, sve sam nezadovoljniji i tešim se da će svaka sledeća biti bolja. Umetnost vidim kao spoznaju. Kroz nju rav- nomerno uzrastam znanjem i ose- ćanjem. Zahvaljujući njoj, bivamo bolji na ovom našem večnom putu neznano kuda. Kroz sve epohe bila je mera naše ljudskosti. Umetnost ne služi ničemu. Mi kroz nju jesmo. U trenutku kad slikam, verujem da je to najbolje moguće, posle shvatim koliko još moram da učim zauvek. sam prestao da brojim. Nemam dela na lageru koja čekaju kupca, slikam šta mi se slika. Svaka slika je kompromis sa egom i darom umetnika. Zato brižljivo bira narudžbine. Ne ide mu slikanje na silu. – Najbolje se prodaju slike koje
painting. Someone also wanted to buy my works. I had more problems because I never wanted to be engaged to promote some ideology, party, trend... I work 365 days a year, which is why I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll survive from my work. He never sought anything specially when discovering his own art, so he spon- taneously shifted from sculpture to paint- ing. His paintings became more colourful over the course of time, while he also dis- covered oil on canvas. He has remained faithful to that form to this day. - In my dreams, characters and motifs often appear that I then apply to brush- strokes on canvas. I always paint multiple pictures simultaneously. In the mornings I don’t know what I will paint that day. It is only when I approach the
canvas that the picture starts to create it- self, like a film on canvas. Often, when looking through the win- dow of his studio, he watches passers-by on the street who are so pressured by their daily jobs that they almost don’t see the world around him. During this time, a new painting emerges on his easel. - It’s always about abstraction with an angled point of view. On it are spots, lines, colours... I build it painstakingly. I progress slowly. Painting, for me, sometimes resem- bles trench warfare, with a frontline that’s difficult to shift. And sometimes there’s sud- den joy, then I forget about myself, become bigger than myself and paint with ease. At one point I kept statistics about what and how much work I did. I came to a fig- ure of about 800 canvases and over 3,000 sketches and watercolors, then I stopped counting. I don’t have works in stock awaiting a buyer; I paint what I feel like painting. Every picture is a compromise with the ego and a gift of the artist. That’s why he carefully selects his or- ders. He can’t force himself to paint. - The pictures that sell best are the ones that are most deeply mine; the ones that I most believed in while I was painting them. The closer I get to completing a painting on canvas, the less satisfied I am, and I struggle for each next one to be better. I see art as cognition. Through it I grow in balance, with knowledge and feeling. Thanks to it, we get bet- ter on this eternal journey of ours to an unknown destination. Through- out all epochs it has been a measure of our humanity. Art doesn’t serve anything; through it we are. At the moment when I paint, I believe it is the best possible work, then after- wards I realise how much more I have to learn, forever.
Gradski anđeo , ulje na drvetu Angel of the city, oil on wood
world, that fine art and ap- plied art attracted me more than anything. I only recog- nised that when I started my schooling, and by sixth grade I’d become certain that painting was my path. Drawing was my first love. I had my first painting class- es in secondary school in Požega. Then I fell in love with the works of Picas- so, Modigliani and the Re- naissance artists, primar- ily Leonardo da Vinci. My professor of sculpture at high school had a strong influence on me, so in Bel- grade I graduated in sculp- ture and not painting,” says Tucović. He sold his first drawing during his high school days. From that money he treated his friends to two lunches in a kafana inn. - Fortunately, I never had a problem living from
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