exhibitions

The Women, living in the villages of Levac County, turned to the traditional crafts and arts - knitting, rug weaving, embroidery, lace embroidery- due to a certain level of isolation and lack of organized social life in the villages. Such conditions are interminable in these villages, and for that reason old crafts and arts have been preserved, and the knowledge of such skills have become a matter of tradition. The works of art, made by the women of Levac, talk volumes of joy, hopes, solitude, aspirations, sorrow... They have been carefully stored in the closets, out of sight, waiting to be given to the young as a gift and as a symbol of love and hope that they will cherish the tradition of their ancestors.

There are not many people in our country, interested in preserving the cultural and historical heritage. And there are few who are focusing on popular construction. That is why we appreciate anyone willing to make an effort in order to contribute to promotion of such important part of our historical heritage. The monumental popular buildings are a very important part of our rich cultural and historical heritage. Ten years ago, you could find the following buildings at many parts of Serbia - old houses, log cabins, wattle and daub houses, outbuildings, dairy store-rooms, corn cribs, water mills, church cabins, and the monuments surrounding them. Unfortunately, the situation has changed nowadays. In most cases, the only objects of this kind that remained, can be found at the premises of deserted households throughout Serbia. The reason for this we can find in new ways of a modern society and the progress of civilization nowadays. As a rule, men erect new buildings after they have ruined the old ones, not paying too much attention to their value and importance. For this reason, it is very hard to find the works of the old master builders. There is a real danger threatening the existence of such buildings, the knowledge of which will be preserved only through documents made on them. With this in mind, we can see how much time and effort the author of this exhibition has invested in order to present the following photographs.

The art of the self-taught authentic painters of Serbia, has been cherished for more than fifty years. This art is based on the rich artistic tradition of Serbian Medieval fresco-painting, and icons made on glass, that has been developed, lately. After this kind of art had been first exhibited in Paris, in 1947, it was called "Yugoslavia Wonder"; its success was recognized at The World's Exhibition in Belgium, in 1958. The Gallery of Self-Taught Artists was founded in Jagodina, in 1960, in order to promote the universal values of this discipline.

Janko Brasic, coming from the village of Oparic, near Kalenic Monastery, has been working as a self-taught painter for thirty years. He is the ancestor of the painters of Oparic School of Painting. His works show Serbian villages, people living there, with their happy moments as well as the sad ones, but they also show the events from the history of Serbian people, its great tragedies, such as the Battle of Kosovo, that Brasic paints over and over again. Raised on the tradition of the folk songs, his artistic language is pure and concise, though bitter sometimes, when he "talks" of the world he belongs to. He is very gifted when it comes to portraits, painting them with refined lyric sensibility, showing his beloved in the scenes of cruel battles, with special feeling for dynamics of a moment. There is a group of younger self-taught artists, working in the village of Oparic, inspired by works of Janko Brasic. They paint the nature that surrounds them. A lyric village landscape is dominant in their works. Stylized hillsides, trees in bloom, vineyards, houses and paths are painted, often in two dimensions, resembling tapestry. Rich and luxurious nature in Levac, is painted on the canvas of its painters, resembling the world of the fairy tales, where there is nothing but joy of life. The love for one's mother land, is shown through the works of self-taught artists of Pomoravlje Region in Serbia. Every tree in bloom, or the shepherdess in the richly colored traditional costume, painted on the canvases so as to show the magic and poetry of the landscape, but the scenes are sometimes enriched by poetry written on the very painting, with letters in various colors, adding to the richness of a painting. In the dawn of a new age, where there is no room for poetry, Oparic stands out with its painters and their air of honesty.