Miodrag Pavlović

SCENES OF DRAGOSLAV ŽIVKOVIĆ1

To paint objects on the table as Dragoslav Živković does on his gouaches and oils, is it discipline or an expression of imagination? If a simple answer could be given to this question, all the magic of this young painter’s art would vanish in the unambiguity.  Discipline it certainly is: submitting to the best moments of the European painting tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries, research in the field of basic painting tasks, while respecting objects, their material nature and their existential materialism.

But in those qualities with which Dragoslav Živković paints his still life, we find a certain shift. The skill with which he presents his still lifes is already such that it overcomes the mastering and solving purely painting tasks; it is the first shift. The second is: the depth of respect that the painter has for his objects, the objects of his paintings, the objects of his objects. That depth is so visible that it becomes unusual. One should not rush and say immediately that these objects are gaining symbolic significance. While being enthroned in a painting, they hesitate to become symbolic. It is necessary that the relationship between the hidden unseen painter and the image of the hidden objects be strong, harmonious, and in its being found – irreplaceable.

A sort of current is established which has the characteristic of painterly love, a love that perfectly focuses on its subject and does not strive to overcome it. Everyone can sense the continuation of such a focus and its painterly fruits. Instead of “overcoming” there is deepening, instead of discovering distant perspectives and backgrounds, there are discoveries, revelations in a narrow and close circle. The illusion of space is thinned; the space on the painting seems to have less than two dimensions. But in that space all objects get along well, they are massive, heavy, but they do not float like ghosts. To them, shape is sacred and the geometry of these shapes, without special emphasis, is self-evident.

It seems that the objects on Živković’s still lifes are part of a particular interior and that, to a certain extent, they belong to minimal, “poor” art. We do not encounter luxuries, we do not encounter an abundance of fruits. But the own brilliance of enamelled sheet metal and individual porcelain objects suggest some architecture neither in heaven not on earth. As if the tablecloth on these gouaches is the sea on the shore of which the buildings of a peaceful harbour have risen with a dark sky behind them. The cities of the future are lowered on poor tables to be seen. They are forms that guard on the line of tension between the opposed elements. They are a lullaby that radiates from the realm of childhood memories. At the same time: purifying all memories, reducing the view of this world to a solid skeleton consisting of a few simple kitchen items. Seen in a timeless and untouchable space.

1986.