Origins of Serbian art
For two millennia, Serbian art has been enriched by various influences. In the first century, the Roman civilization gave a first impulse to its still incipient traditions. In the cities that developed at that time, rich merchants surrounded themselves with objects and decorative elements of great finesse in the classical style. The National Museum of Serbia, founded in 1844 in Belgrade, houses a department of ancient remains, including superb statuettes.
The tradition of painting
Painting is one of the oldest national arts. Its first manifestations are the miniature, the icon on wood and the fresco, painted on the walls of churches. From the 10th century onwards, the codes of figuration were redefined in the Orthodox monasteries. In central Serbia, the school of Raška, both the oldest and the most classical, flourished. The Greek canons remain visible in the frescoes and religious icons.
At the end of the 12th century, the style became more homogenous, as itinerant artists crossed each other on a single route that linked Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. In the North, Romanesque and Byzantine influences intermingle as can be seen in the monastery of Studenica, a jewel of Byzantine painting of the 13th and 14th centuries. In the monastery of Mileševa, the art of portraiture of royalty was born, developed for the purpose of education; the "Fresco of the White Angel" spreads a message of peace that has been hailed throughout the world. The history of the country in the Middle Ages is told on the walls of the patriarchal monastery of Peć (located in Kosovo), while the princely portraits of the monastery-fortress of Manasija
are among the gems of medieval art. The Serbian school is distinguished by the early use of printed icons. As early as 1494, illustrated books of great artistic quality and originality were produced. Subsequently, the icon follows the evolution of Western painting, adopting the realist, rococo or baroque styles, until the 18th century.Towards modernism
The following two painters and several of their contemporaries have some paintings exhibited in the National Museum of Serbia
.Nadežda Petrović (1873-1915), is among the most influential Serbian painters of the turn of the 20th century. Her interpretation of Fauvism is a game changer. His paintings based on large surfaces favor red and green. His successive styles corresponded to his places of residence: Munich, Serbia, Paris. Then the war. Present in most national museums, his work is concentrated in the Art Gallery Nadežda Petrović in Čačak.
His contemporary Paja Jovanović (1859-1957) is one of the pioneers of Serbian genre painting. With the historical context changing rapidly, he was influenced by contemporary events. He began by painting genre scenes, such as the Struggle of the Birds, a surrealist painting that would bring him international recognition. But it was his portraits of aristocratic figures and his frescoes drawn from national history that made him unique. His best-known work, Migration of Serbs under Arsenije III Čarnojević, depicts Serbs fleeing Ottoman violence in the late 17th century.The last of the beasts
Milan Konjović, born in 1898 in Sombor, began exhibiting in 1914. After the war, he joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, but continued his training independently in Vienna, then in Germany. Between 1924 and 1932, he lived in Paris and began his blue period, marked by the paintings Cassis bleus and Nu dans un fauteuil. He returned to his native country in 1932, and from then on was inspired by the panoramas and inhabitants of Serbia. Beginning of the red period(Portrait of a Professor, Harvest), then the gray period. Konjović made a turn in 1953 by adopting vibrant tones. His palette and the expressiveness of his line earned him the title of "the last of the fauvists". In 1985, he turned to Byzantine history. During his long career, which ended in 1993, Konjović produced more than 6,000 works: paintings, pastels, watercolors, mosaics, drawings, which cover the most important modern trends. In 1966 , the Konjović Gallery opened in Sombor and hosted the artist's legacy.
Informal art
In the twentieth century, talents of international significance laid the foundations of the Yugoslav school. Art lovers will visit the National Museum of Serbia whose collection encompasses three centuries of painting in Serbia, as well as Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso. The Belgrade Museum of Contemporary Art
in Novi Beograd, located in a tree-lined park on the banks of the Danube, invites visitors to become familiar with the leading figures of the Yugoslav school.Among them, Petar Lubarda (1907-1974) is the internationally renowned Montenegrin painter. After studying at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, he won the Grand Prix in 1940. After the war, he created the first art school in Montenegro. He also gave courses of pictorial art in the most important institutions. His avant-garde works quickly distinguished him from his peers of the 1950s. His dreamlike compositions, mixing expressionist themes and postmodern images, plunge us into a surreal world. He does not hesitate to assemble heterogeneous materials and everyday objects. Petar Lubarda proposes a synthesis between painting and everything that touches the representative art.
Branko Filipović Filo (1924-1997) exhibited from 1950 in Belgrade, then in Paris, Ljubljana, Vienna and at the Venice Biennale. He participated in the group exhibition "Informal Art in Belgrade" which brought together young painters at the Belgrade Culture Center Gallery in 1962. At the crossroads of modernism and postmodernism, the group Art informel in Belgrade is attached to existentialist thought. The mistrust towards the system translates for these artists into anti-images, radical alternatives far from any aesthetic quest. This trend, which caused a scandal, opened the way to multidisciplinary approaches. However, Filo quickly evolved towards "pure painting", defined by the reintroduction of painting and two-dimensional representation. The Modern Gallery Belgrade continues to exhibit his work.Surrealism
One of the creators of the Belgrade surrealist movement and the leader of Serbian painters in Paris, Ljuba Popović, was born in 1934. After studying at the Belgrade Fine Arts School, Popović created the avant-garde group Mediala in 1960 with friends: already, his aggressive style is recognizable, mixing a quasi pointillist technique and large rectilinear flat tints. He then moved to Paris and multiplied exhibitions around the world until his death in 2016. Ljuba Popović offers a tormented painting, mixing female bodies, architecture and surrealist forms in compositions of a rare chromatic intensity. A painting that relates desire and death, purity and chaos, microcosm and macrocosm. The underlying and imminent forces are ready to emerge to give the interlacing architectural motifs a subversive character: the order of the world is only apparent for Ljuba, it only asks to be upset by the tragic dimension of man.
Serbian naive painters
Serbia is especially famous for its naive painters, such as Janko Brašić, Sava Sekulić, Martin Jonaš and Zuzana Halupova. Note the Museum of Naive Art in Jagodina or the Gallery of Naive Art
in Kovačica, between the towns of Pančevo and Zrenjanin. Established in 1960, the MNMA in Jagodina, established in the beautiful residence of the Ristić family, has a collection of 3,000 works. Paintings, sculptures and drawings made from 1930 to the present day trace all aspects of naive art. The museum includes artists from Serbia, but also from Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary, Germany and Italy, among others. Among the Serbs, sculptor Dragutin Aleksić (1947-2011) carves his interpretations of original figures in wood. The painter Janko Brašić (1906-1994) is recognized as the first Serbian naive painter. He painted genre scenes, portraits, including many self-portraits, and landscapes. Also Emerik Fejes (1904-1969), who excels in landscapes reconstructed from real cities, made in tempera, and Vojislav Jakić (1932-2003) whose drawings in Indian ink are full of details.Contemporary
Among the great names of the contemporary school, Olja Ivanjicki (1931-2009) was born in Serbia into a Russian family expelled from the USSR after the October Revolution. This painter, sculptor, poet, multimedia artist, visionary, architect and fashion designer is a great name in Serbian contemporary art. In her work influenced by pop art, she linked the irreconcilable: cosmonauts to the Renaissance, Russians to Americans, earthlings to aliens. She was one of the founders and the only woman in the Mediala art circle, which also included Popović.
In the last twenty years, the young generation, led by Jovanka Stanojević (born in 1979) or Simonida Rajčević, advocates a return to the real, to the real, a social figurative art. Their work can be discovered in Belgrade at the Gallery 73 or at the Gallery of the Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation (or Kolarac University).Street art in Belgrade
The love affair between Serbia and urban art began when Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia. In the 1980s, Belgrade was home to an effervescent avant-garde. The first Serbian graffiti artists were called Fantastic Boys, the Rap City Crew, and then Jens. Soon, they received municipal orders, intended to embellish the facades. The first large-scale fresco, the mythical Student looking at the wall, remains visible on Rajiceva Street. The collapse of Yugoslavia led to the decline of street art. Jens took refuge in Paris, then returned in 1994 and founded Anonymous Graffiti Crew with Cobes. Their simple and colorful messages hit home, including the famous He Is Done, referring to Milošević. Other groups follow such as BGILLEGAL Crew and Anti Fascist Youth. The festival BELEF takes its marks, and attracts in 2008 and 2009 the cream of international artists. On this occasion, BLU paints his revered Giant Man Eating a Tree
on Pop Lukina Street. From now on, the collectives multiply and all styles cohabit. To meet them, go to Savamala, a former industrial area converted into a lively neighborhood, Cetinjska, where bars have a tradition of entrusting their facades to street artists. More out of the way, the schools of Zemun and New Belgrade lend their walls to street painters. One of the biggest achievements decorates the Lazar Savatić elementary school: Magical Forest brought together twelve artists from Serbia, Bulgaria and Spain, who came to tell twelve tales in images. The tour of the Dorcol district concludes at Dorcol Square, the beating heart of the current scene!
