PAINTING HESYCHASM OF DRAGOSLAV ŽIVKOVIĆ¹

Whenever you find yourselves in front of Dragoslav Živković’s paintings, you immediately realize that the exhibited paintings testify that, regardless of fashion, there are painters who hold on to the painting craft, to the painting tradition, to painting itself. On the occasion of Živković’s exhibition at the Modern Gallery in Valjevo (2006), Branko Kukić wrote: “In his painting, Živković shows two basic spheres of existence – nature and man, what the Creator made and what man built.“ The former manifests itself as a lonely tree in a landscape, and the latter as a lonely house!…“ “A tree is a symbolic connection between two directions, traditionally marked as the opposites. These are the world of the earth and the world of heaven. Most often separated as opposites, they, in fact, strive for connection and unification. All the great works and states of a mankind have just been realized in the moments of this great symbiosis. Could Živković’s lonely, bare tree be that mythical, eternal mediator?“

The answer is yes. On that seesaw, between the earth and the sky, Dragoslav Živković virtuously solves the problem of balance. He plants a small tree in the middle of the painting. He leaned the sky against it. Everything takes place under gloomy clouds, under the auspices of Orthodox mysticism, under the burden of the universe. It stands upright and stoically bears that burden. That is truly an Archimedes’ point in Živković’s painting. The question of the lonely tree as a motif in Živković’s paintings, emphasized by the respected B. Kukić, can also be interpreted as the painter’s strength, as the power of independent solving environmental problems. These necessarily initiate and produce internal unrest, which is, naturally, an integral part of the creative act. It must be admitted that Živković manages to act suggestively and to impose a mystery. He slightly shocks the viewer by the by fulfilling the painting with a special atmosphere and the ability to overcome the drama and present the suffering and silence. You have the impression that each of his paintings is a celebration. You have the same feeling as when you stand in the middle of Hilandar Monastery in front of the icon of the Virgin with three hands – you get tingles and at the same time you have a feeling of grace. Živković makes you, without effort, think about the power of nature, about life as an essence and the role of man in all that. In his watercolours, man appears indirectly. In his paintings one can see everyday objects: lines, plates. Mostly empty. They lie, squat or lean on each other. Silence. So far, we have listened to the silence. Now we can see it. Maestro Živković powerfully rules the light. He plays with shadows. He plays hide-and-seek with them. He walks on tiptoe. He approaches them quietly and skillfully from every side. Of course, he always outsmarts them. He just points discretely. When he discovers them, he releases them. The silence from Dragoslav’s paintings moves into my soul. The objects on Živković’s paintings are not just ascertained, they also radiate a strong experience and they form a base of his iconography.

Let us recall what our famous poet Miodrag Pavlović noticed back in 1986: “It seems that the objects of Živković’s still-lifes are part of a specific interior and that to a certain extent they belong to a minimal, ‘poor’ art. We do not encounter luxury objects; we do not encounter an abundance of fruits. But the very brilliance of enameled sheet metal and individual porcelain objects suggest a kind of architecture neither in heaven nor on earth.” There is no doubt that a strong thought and even stronger experience have been turned by providence into a fantastic painting. It all happened in a long silence. This silence, together with Dragoslav’s soul, was transferred to his watercolors. The lines on them seem to have disappeared. One can just feel them. Everything is in the silence that floats before our eyes. It seems as if the ancient thought of Father Gregory Palamas is being realized: “silence is the language of future centuries.” We are privileged to witness the painting hesychasm, to see its fruits and to enjoy. We are given the illusion of complicity.

Ivan Perić noticed in 1998 that the objects in Živković’s paintings are “beings that radiate” and that they present “loneliness as a state”. What else can one conclude except that the painter’s hesychasm intervened here.

And here is what our famous poet Miroslav Todorović wrote about the painting hesychasm of Dragoslav Živković in his extraordinary poetic text: “Here, the vision thickens into black and becomes a mythical space on the other side, where the truths are proclaimed by the silence of the emptiness that is inhabited by the content of time and everything material that was, and those that existed.”

Leposava Milovanović in her analytical and very substantial text about Dragoslav Živković (“Likovni život”, 79– 80, 1999) also refers, among other things to Živković’s painting hesychasm: “Nobly lonely (with all due respect to the great painters, the predecessors, the sources and the inspiration), this painter goes through life and art quietly and effortlessly. He extracts his paintings from himself and by himself. The earthly traces, memories, dreams, general spiritual collection…”

The master from Dragoslav’s painting is looking somewhere with a worried face. Worried about our fate? And maybe it was my thought that came to his mind – Every Master finds his black hole someday! Some find smaller, some find bigger! Behind him, with frightened, wide-open eyes, some women are bending. And the soldier, also stunned, seems to hold a spear! Coal on canvas. Black and white. We do not know what sparkles. Black or white? I think both. Convincing! Exciting! Indeed! His eyes glaze. Fear for the fate of human race (humanity) erupts from them. That fear is encrypted. It is in the genetic code. It constantly destroys the human mind. Well, it is in the power of this virtuoso to break the codes of this and the similar borderline states. This grandmaster painter “solved” the problem of four colours on his watercolours and drawings a long time ago. Taking into account the colour of the background, he needs only two colours, black and white to express the state of his and/or someone else’s mind.

He considers, very studiously, very deeply, the various states of the mind. Usually the borderline ones. Well, he then virtuously “transports” those states to the canvas, turning them into a masterpiece. He, “working on a self-portrait, has a dialogue with himself about the meaning of life and the world…” (Miroslav Todorović). He then sends us warning signals from the wall. He warns us that we should finally come to our senses. Until it’s too late. Of course, often from the background of the painting. He is always ready to allow the Master to do his job to the end. To keep his word. To take all the sins (and everyone’s guilt) on himself. Judging by the pictures I saw (both those in Dragoslav’s house and in the Homeland Museum in Knjaževac), the two of them are in a constant relationship, in an uninterrupted dialogue.

Biblical themes (Ecce Homo, Crucifixion, Carnival, etc) are presented in very complex compositions. They are most often focused on the customs of the Serbian people. In most oil compositions we notice widely painted surfaces that are, surprisingly, coplanar and almost independent.  A combinatorial geometry known only to Živković creates a sense of illusions, of a multidimensional space (including, of course, the psychological dimension). Živković, with his superb technique, insight and, above all, lucid mental constructions of galleries of characters who huddle in the paintings (some stare at you, some are completely indifferent, some scared, some confused, lost, etc.) creates a compact masterpiece that could be easily described in Kantian style: nothing should be added or taken away here! There is no stuttering in his paintings. His thought and aesthetic form are in deep symbiosis. They do not leave you indifferent for a moment. Moreover, they provoke ecstatic experiences. The light is masterfully constrained to silence, and behind the tree, behind the house, there is a fire. You can feel the warmth. Life is burning. There, you look at the painting and you hear the fire crackling. Life plays its role: it illuminates the universe. So, it is about the attitude that life carries the whole sky on its shoulders. Dragoslav Živković provided the sky with a solid support. He put life under it. It now carries everything. And suffers everything.

God, everything looks harmonious, simple and perfect!

(Bogdanović S., „Painting hesychasm of Dragoslav Živković“, in: Records, Knjaževac, Public library „Njegoš“, 2016. 9-12)