The graphic maps of the Montenegrin painter and writer Dimitri Popović "The Wonderworker of Cetinje" and "The King" were presented last night, in the gallery of the Native Museum, to the Kolašin audience.
The first is dedicated to the jubilee - 190 years since the death of Petar I Petrović Njegoš and contains ten compositions, inspired by the secular and spiritual activities of this impressive figure of Montenegrin history. For his artistic interpretations with symbolic iconography, the author used two well-known figures of Peter I.
The "King" graphic map, as it was said last night, was presented for the first time in Montenegro. It was published on the occasion of the centenary of the death of King Nikolay and contains ten graphic sheets in the technique of lithography and screen printing. Both projects were implemented with the support of the Council of the Montenegrin National Minority in Zagreb.
"Tradition is not inherited, but created. A lot of work has to be done in order to maintain the awareness of the tradition. In this sense, these two projects, which show the continuity of culture, the presence of the book, where the specificity of the Montenegrin being stands out, namely that in the most difficult and harsh conditions for survival, the need for culture existed, as something most essential, which gives meaning and vitality to the national being", said the author last night in front of the Kolašin audience.
Popović explained that graphic maps express the relationship to tradition, through artistic media, "where the specificity of our culture and history is emphasized through two significant figures of Montenegrin history".
"On the other hand, the contextualization of the characters refers to the dimension of their personality, by which they were recorded in history. At St. Peter's I used a couple of portraits that have been preserved and you will see the mystical and religious dimension. With King Nikola, the time and context are different, as well as other elements. It is the secular dimension of a dynamic history of the modern age, so the artistic language is also different," said Popović.
The secretary of the Council of the Montenegrin National Minority in Zagreb, Danilo Ivezić, said that Popović was "one of the individuals who marked and still marks space and time in Croatia". According to him, the national community is working on a large number of significant projects with Dimitri.
"These two graphic maps are our story about Montenegro and our story about what we are trying to preserve and publicly present in Croatia. I think we can proudly say that what we do is becoming an integral part of Croatian culture. We don't consider that we are doing these things as a national minority, we are doing them, first of all, within the framework of the country where we chose to live and work," said Ivezić.
The President of the Municipality, Marta Šćepanović, who opened Popović's exhibition, claims that this event gives Kolašin's tourist offer a special quality. The author, she said, enabled the audience to "travel through space and the timeless primordial need for answers, also travel through the reflection of his attitude and experience, inscribed with the life path of the Montenegrin sovereign, King Nikola, and the worldly and spiritual activities of one of the greatest figures of Montenegrin history, Peter And Petrović Njegoš".
"On the road to modernization and Europeanization of our society, today more than ever we need the king's statesmanship and his vision of modern Montenegro, to warn us and remind us how obsession with unrealistic political ambitions can cost us dearly. We need the miracle worker's blessing and a call for civil peace and the eradication of divisions, which, undermining our unity and the hope that we will soon be a member of the EU, can be fatal. "Thank you to Dimitri for encouraging us to think about the past with this exhibition, without knowing which we cannot soberly think about the present or make decisions about the future," Šćepanović said.
Draginja Kujović, an art historian and longtime curator of the Native Museum, reminded me of the details of Popović's rich biography and his Stavral oeuvre. She also said that seven years ago Popović's graphic map exhibition October 1494 - 2015 was opened in Kolašin.
Kujović thanked the author and the Council of the Montenegrin National Minority for donating individual prints from all three graphic maps to the Native Museum.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
