Lubarda and Njegoš (4): Artists who speak for the era

What Njegoš is in poetry, Lubarda is in the painting of Montenegro. They expressed their interpretation of life with words and color, leaving permanent works suitable for new interpretations and critical judgment.

5382 views 0 comment(s)
From the series "Man and Beast", Photo: Vijesti.me
From the series "Man and Beast", Photo: Vijesti.me
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

(Continued from last Saturday)

U Lubardin imposing work, the emanation of evil in history, is symbolically represented in the painting Man and beast (1964), similar to the Revelation of John in the Bible, which depicts the demonic seduction of destructive force when it annihilates man. The orientation towards pure color, symbol, and rhythmic arrangement of elements, introduces a dose of realism, the power to create a dramatic charge from the immediacy of the given, introduces the necessary drama, the horror of the collision of two principles, two forms on the canvas. Lubarda's painting optics is increasingly occupied by the theme of evil, the way in which violence breaks the fragile human personality of an individual victim in the turmoil of war, an intimate reminder of the suffering of his father Đura Lubarde in the ideological clashes between supporters of the new political order and the old regime of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Since 1951, when he created the famous exhibition in Belgrade, Lubarda defined his painting manifesto, made a step forward in relation to the socialist realist school, with abstract expressions, an associative spectrum of symbols, and a wealth of meaning. He creates his own language, combines modern and traditional painting, expanding his thematic horizons. Fascinated by the post-war development of the country, he is devoted to the spectacle of reconstruction, the ceremonial and ritual of the new regime, its work actions, the splendor of crushed stone, the rocks furrowed and magnificent in which he tries to capture grain of brilliance, brilliance and flash. However, in addition to the eros of creation, he is even more impressed by the drive of death, then a real cycle Enough blood, enough killing. (1968), in the memorial complex of Kragujevac, as a contribution to the resistance to the totalitarian ideology of fascism. Lubarda said that an artist should be socially engaged: Art is a big mirror that does not allow society to see everything about itself. Therefore, the artist must, in the full sense of the word, live with his time, he expresses the involvement of the best in the human spirit, expresses the complex power of life. In the biblical commandment: Don't kill! Cain's murder of his brother Abel in Old Testament, finds an ideological basis for the artistic condemnation of the turmoil of war, because art has not only an aesthetic, but above all a social role that should serve the purpose of condemning every aspect of violence. Lubarda places high demands on artists, because they are highly responsible for the establishment of a more just political order. He could find such an incentive in Njegošev literary work, resistance to bullies, which has a moral value in a more complete personal and social revival.

In addition to Njegošev's ideas, character and appearance Cetinje loner, poet and ruler, is a challenge for Lubarda's painterly intuition. He joined a whole series of painters who dealt with the intriguing personality of Peter the Second Petrović Njegoš, a constellation of artists from the Slovenian painter Jozef Tominac, who created a portrait of the poet in 1939 with a black panacamilavka, to the lithographic workshop Anastas Jovanović in Vienna, where the first lithographs and portraits were made Johana Besa in Montenegrin national clothes, which served as his basic artistic template. It is known that Njegoš's striking figure was an inspiration to painters of the 19th century, but also to artists in the 20th century, from Pera Poceka, Jovan Zonjić, Šobajić, Dimitrija Popović who tried to record Njegoš's extraordinary physical appearance, as well as the mental and spiritual qualities of his distinctive personality.

It is known that Lubarda's portrait of Njegošev, which is kept in a central place in Billiard, has specific characteristics of a representative historical representation of the Montenegrin ruler. According to the instructions of art canon Johan Bes, following his own vision, he painted Njegoš's character, expressed the seriousness of his historical task. With sharp facial features, he hinted at rigor in the merciless struggle with the Eastern and Western imperial powers, work to preserve territorial integrity, and gain the independence of the people entrusted to his administration. Njegoša who dies for Montenegro. In consciousness, like a revelation, the entire historical context of Njegoš's era opens up, mythical heroes taken from epic poetry, opens the way to the psychological study of the poet's complex character, intertwines myth and history, establishes the story of a chivalrous people who it preserves the freedom of the soul.

In portraying an individual character, Lubarda showed all the elements of his developed artistic poetics, covering the path from sensory perception to the most complex visual experience. In the analysis of portraits according to the principles of phenomenological aesthetics, we observe how in a meticulously given character, from the material - real, to the spiritual - unreal in the structure of the work. A work of art is a series of successively placed layers. In the foreground we see the color, line, form, in the background layers we perceive Njegoš - the ruler, the severity of his physiognomy, facial features covered with sharply set eyebrows, which gives the whole physiognomy decisiveness, readiness for action, military and political action, work on organizing the state apparatus, establishment of institutions according to the criteria of orderly European societies. The strength of character embodied in courage, the audacity to confront a superior enemy, the awareness of suffering and sacrifice for a life worthy of man, the struggle for survival in unfavorable historical circumstances for the sake of preserving the vital interests of the community is suggested.

In the last layers of the portrait, we see not only the figure of Njegoš the ruler, but also a man sui generis, the ideal and immortal, in his being, the tragic code written in Lights: Our country is the mother of millions, the son of one cannot be happily married. Then, the anthropological pessimism stemmed from the poet's understanding a meaningless vanity fair, earthly chairs, in which stupidity and tyranny are inevitably combined in the behavior of bullies. There appears what is general - human, and what cannot be the subject of historiography and science, the universal value of the human psyche.

According to the phenomenological analysis, our sensory perception of a concrete color, contour, line and drawing is followed by an aesthetic perception of a higher order, the discovery of the spiritual world of the image, the psychological profile, the atmosphere of the time in which political circumstances and historical events are outlined, the ruler's pretensions, the fullness of the poet's overall individuality. In fact, the artist gives us the opportunity to see a living personality, to get information based on which we re-create an authentic phenomenon in our consciousness, psychology, temperament, emotions, so the portrait educates us in our unusual understanding of that rarest combination of physical and spiritual beauty that occurs in our aesthetic experience.

Lubarda's depiction visualizes warrior determination, alertness in preserving freedom, fiery feeling in patriotic enthusiasm for a small Balkan country, the courage of a statesman, ready to challenge any threat to his own territory by diplomatic means, sobriety in the foreign policy representation of Montenegro's interests. There we can sense a centuries-old liberation action by which he wants to inspire the other peoples of the Balkans to a common struggle for the acquisition of national independence. The value of freedom is an inviolable personal and collective ideal, an idea that is not deviated from even in the most difficult situations, a freedom that enriches man, and makes moral behavior possible.

Lubarda builds on the image of a violent ruler dedicated to difficult earthly tasks, a man directed by duties, his whole character is depicted, a humane paradigm to which he belongs with his whole being. Through the optics of the senses, the painter succeeds in portraying an energetic sovereign, devoted to the idea of ​​national liberation and social prosperity, which corresponds to Njegoš's activist political philosophy. In the eye of the beholder, a realistic figure is created given a well-thought-out painting method, material and color, a vision that succeeds in conveying his mental makeup to us, and can be used for reflection regarding the hidden side of an expressive personality. We really see the figure of a bold ruler in space and time, that open belligerence, we imagine his imposing appearance moving around European capitals, meetings with rulers, politicians and diplomats, the way he makes decisions about war, governs his subjects, faithfulness to the achievement of set political goals. Visuality includes much more than our optical mind, perception and meditation, emotions and cognitive abilities, real and fantastic, intuitive and rational, the power to reveal the secret of the personality through an artistic symbol. Without excessive beautification, Lubarda created a character that radiates inner strength, the authority of the ruler, that immediate source of meaning on the basis of which the currents of history are directed in the desired direction.

Lubarda is able to revive dead matter, give us the impression of a living personality, the richness of her psychological features, the spirituality of her physiognomy, which is invisible to the everyday way of seeing. A portrait is a representation of the soul, its uniqueness, a visual sign through which one reaches the fullness of the personality. In the visual language, color, contour, line, the invisible layer of the moral qualities of the painted person, his temperament, emotions, moods, and finally the firmness and constancy of the character, in which the poet's mental endowment and wisdom shine through, are recorded. Njegoš's portrait is a combination of physical beauty and the elusive secret of man: Look at the man from every point, insofar as only that all-round insight of the artist can bring us closer to the secret of man, which remains inexplicable until the end. In the deeper layers of the picture, we perceive strong political activity, the diplomatic skills of a ruler capable of negotiating with the highest European officials, orientation towards the internal construction of society, the external representation of Crma Gora in international relations, the historical climate of the time, the heroic era of the Montenegrin past. The serious expression of the face contains the ruler's pretensions as well as the complex time of the historical stage of Europe. We are ready to resolutely defend every interest of Montenegro and its inhabitants, the aspiration to resist military pretensions in accordance with historical processes and public policies that are valid on the European political scene: I'm a hajduk and I'm chasing hajduks/my hajduk is louder, it is a segment of a part of the ruling being, hidden in the deeper message of the picture. It is a focus on fulfilling worldly obligations and the difficult duties of a ruler. In the background layers, the unreal that adheres to the real material suggests the personality as the all-human, the idea of ​​man and his truth in itself, the ideal essence inexpressible in language.

Art teaches us new perception. Aesthetic perception goes beyond sensuality, with a timeless insight into the ideal being of the person portrayed, a living personality, so our perception reaches from the real to the unreal, from the foreground - visible plan to the invisible - background in which a deeper and more immediate being is revealed. In the act of observation, something like a revelation takes place, a sudden penetration into the secret of the personality, a flash that illuminates the essence like a lightning glance, and culminates in the inimitability of aesthetic pleasure.

In the last phase of Lubarda's artistic creation, from 1957 - 1963, he increasingly turned to the macro - cosmos, as toposu, where he wants to discover the microcosm. Like the journey of the soul spark, described in six cantos They emit microcosms, he is increasingly attracted to put u cosmos, an exploration of the relationship between chaos and order, light and darkness, which is expressed through heavily colored surfaces. He moves further and further away from figural representation, with abstract shapes, color that shines on the canvas. After his stay in India (1963), the object becomes a sign, an emblem, an arabesque that has a mystical meaning that can be reached through intuitive observation. Mysteries of the cosmos It is unattainable to the eye except for the artist.: Mind is only one without limit/all others are myopic minds. According to visions related to Lights he creates his own metaphysical space, imbued with embers - red, orange and yellow, immersed in the background of the painting in the dark colors of his palette, which gives everything a dystopian look, a prediction of a cosmic cataclysm, the end of the universe. In Njegoš's ontology of creation, there is an ultimate purpose, identical to dwelling in the light: When all the ends are ablaze with light/then the general creator will rest, while Lubarda's is more about a pessimistic vision of the future. In this phase the winged monsters, the gryphons and the green dragons and the zodiac signs, represent the conflict between life and death. The darkened gamma on the canvas acts with a destructive drive as an unbridled force of chaos, suggesting a clash of meaningful and (un)meaningful masses, from which no light order can be born. A change in the theme leads to a change in the painting technique, the painting is increasingly a two-dimensional emblem that compensates for the lack of perspective with its ambiguous structure, sound color, and new artistic solutions. And yet we cannot escape the impression that with these lurid visions Lubarda predicted his own death, expressed a kind of nihilistic attitude towards the world of life, mistrust in the humanistic goals of humanity, but also a demonstration of the interconnectedness of the symbols of different civilizations in the general flow of energy of the universe.

All in all, while Njegoš was consistently developing his pessimistic anthropology when it comes to earthly life, Lubarda used figurative language to refer to the apocalypse of the universe. Njegoš is aware of the tragedy of human destiny: Our country is a loving mother/you cannot marry one son with happiness or in time and stormy life/happiness is unknown to man/true happiness for which he runs forever/he knows neither its measures nor its limits. In the spirit of the synthesis of ancient and Christian teachings, he points out that the soul is immortal, imbued with faith in the resurrection of the soul. In the closing verses They shine, he sang a hymn about the divine-human victory over death and moral behavior that is taken as a ticket to eternal life: Followers of my law return to the first bliss. In this respect, Lubarda is close to the postmodern erasure of the purposeful movement of human history, the teaching about the end of all great narratives about progress, and the end of man. It vibrates like a disturbing impulse, a terrifying vision that is transmitted from the cosmic expanse to the human world. The painting is done in oil on hardboard Rocks (1965) is a reduction of the image, a minimalist representation, surrendering to an abstract - expressive expression, a fixation on different structures and textures in the stone, according to the faded gamma and shadow, a step into the meta - world, seeing the future time, with one reduced color. Such a visual experience outside of time limits, created by a painter's sensibility that foregrounds the relief layering, cracks from which supernatural experiences leak, gives a special imaginativeness.

Every era has its spokesmen. They speak on behalf of the era. These are epochal artists, because they communicate everything that is important. The accumulated experience of centuries speaks in them. What Njegoš is in poetry, Lubarda is in Montenegrin painting. With words, or rather color, they expressed their interpretation of life, leaving behind lasting works suitable for new interpretations and critical judgment.

We always fight against the darkness in an effort to illuminate it, writes Lubarda. Njegoš claims that he exists in the cosmos the throne of the perfumer will be bathed in light. However we judge, light was the key to understanding the invisible energy of the world, its beauty, truth, goodness, symmetry, proportionality, otherwise the dark realm would remain eternal. To illuminate the darkness in us and around us, that is the mission of the artist, the task of every person on the planet, to oppose evil and violence, everything that is not beautiful, hideous, formless and ugly. The process of pro-enlightenment never ends. This is the task of art, which finds its foothold, its meaning in the negation of the destructive.

We can rightly conclude that Njegoš and Lubarda, artists of a large format, are apologists for light, the ideal of freedom, which manifests the highest meaning of human (self) respect. With their personal integrity and work, they earned the right to verses that refer to the permanence of their creative contribution in Montenegrin, South Slavic and European culture: Eternal teeth/eternal eclipses/the thread burns up and the light fades.

Bonus video: