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The word of Dzoja (Joya) Ratkovic's drawnings
Dzoja Ratkovic has drawn her conception of the universe and of life; thus, it is visible now and yet insufficiently clear; so much unclear that it needs a commentator, an interpreter, a translator.
It has already become people's habit to ask in front of a drawing or a painting, „Whatever the artist wanted to express by this?" — hasn't it? And so, I too am joining the ranks of Dzoja's commentators, here, in the margins of her great drawings, in order that a complex world should not become simpler, but, I should say, more intricate — through my interference. Her small, chubby man who has got into the habit of throwing his suspenders over his ears, who putters all the time in Dzoja's drawings and whose adventures we have followed in the comic strips carried by the Belgrade weekly comic paper Jez and the Literary Gazette, — well, this little chap grabbed me by the lapels and took me into that world where houses are sometimes so unreal that we suddenly find ourselves in an infinite irrationality; these houses in which owell the gnome and his large family, are reduced to some lines suggesting' some other space, but not the known three-dimensional architecture in which terrestrials live. The same is true of that house on which a tree casts its blue shadow. It is only the shadow th?t is blue. Of course, impressionists discovered the coloured shadows before; they were horrified at black and the authentic tar that would be used again, later, by Dali. But Dzoja also seems to be playing with the spirit of impressionism: ,,Here is your b!ue shadow! But all the rest is black for you." — The newlyweds Albert's and Victoria's green and blue eyes, respectively, do not count — the bride and the bridegroom drawn by Dzoja — because they belong in her world. But is it eyes, after all? Or maybe the inhabitants of that planet have such eyes? The blue shadow falls upon the house which is not necessarily a house. There is a window, outside, hanging like a picture, on its only one wall. Such eyes Albert's and Victoria's eyes, are looking out such windows and watching their own world; they can see the blue shadow cast on their house; but the shadow is not fading out, no — it is rising in the space, as if the space itself, suggested by the flat plane of the white paper, were still nothing but a mere surface; as though the world inhabited by the gnome and his family were superficial, that is without the third dimension here and there, so that the blue shadow could leave its traces on it and on those places above the house where it would otherwise disappear. Disappear — in view of our terrestrial laws!
At this point, one should talk about a real adventure of shadows
The blue shadow of Dzoja's pseudoimpressionism in the black-and-white world of these drawings is not lost, however, in the space which is not necessarily a space; for this world is paradoxical. The blue shadow betrays the leafy tree and presents it without its leafage; the shadows here live their independent life. There is another Dzoja's, drawing where a man's shadow is materializing, coming to life, getting up from the ground — in the infinite space-surface play — and sitting down. Still another drawing presents a shrinking and wrinkling shadow which does not seem to be wanting to leave an enclosed space and stretch in the light of the setting sun. It seems as if these shadows live their own independent lives. This planet, the planet of Dzoja's world, like Alice's Wonderland, mocks ours, mocks Descartes's, mocks the rationalist, three-dimensional and excessively explained world in which inmpressionists paint the blue shadows of a false optimism and joy of an awful fin de siecle. In the play of Dzoja's paradoxes the shadows revive, perhaps according to that Ksfkian principle, the humorous inversions of the metaphor; if one can say that „men become shadows", then there will be an inversion, a humorous revolution in which shadows will rise and become something like creatures, but those creatures that have already betrayed the meaning of their existence. If it was possible to say that shadows were faithful, which was proverbial, then, after these drawings, one cannot say that any longer .
No more, because the blue shadow has betrayed the leafy tree and failed to outline its leaves, as if this very shadow lives in its own biology, in some other times, in some other season. And in still another inversion, in the surface — space relationship, the kids of these strange creatures hang their swing on the shadow.
However, many other lawless things are happening here, because Dzoja's world has its own laws which are absurd to us: the setting sun is supported by the horizon, to the left from the winding and wrapping road. The humor of these drawings also results from this new lawfulness by which Dzoja evades all the positive laws of an excessively simplified positivism.
And, quite unexpectedly, Escher comes up in our conversation
Not mentioning Kafka in our conversation whi'e standing before these great drawings, Dzoja suddenly remembered Escher. 1 wondered if Dzoja too was a member of that secret fraternity which, here, at this point, I should conditionally call — the Lovers of the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher. I have met many of them; some of them are famous painters. Dzoja mentioned Escher while standing in front of a drawing of a big clock with no dial, suggesting that time was lost in no-time or in a timeless space.
It seemed to me that there was no apparent reason for mentioning graphic artist Escher. We started talking about Escher's architectural imagery, about his staircases on which one goes downstairs when going upstairs, about his dimensional warp, many paradoxes and evaded laws on which his work was based. This graphic lawlessness results from a justified rebellion against the world that is much too clea;. Everything is clear to fools only. But positivists believed that nothing is so unclear that one should bother about. Escher was in a different lawlessness. Dzoja is a humorist among the rebels in a revolution of spirit. She watches this world consciously and intentionally through Albert's green eyes. And she sees a myriad of wonders: the enlivening shadows, on which the swings hang, the wrapping road, the windows arranged even over the human body — the windows so badly needed by those ,,who draw inward upon themselves" .
In the algebra of the „dangarous equations" graphically solved by Dzoja, as well as by graphic artist Escher, we could not accurately determine where the humorous line ends and where the serious begins. The seriousness of these drawings comes from the fact that they are an answer to one of our frivolities. They respond with a humorous relativity to one of our legalized relativities. Dzoja has drawn a world of her own which is at war with our world, the world that has been Descartesean so long and Escherean so little. Like Alice, she felt a strong desire for wonders, and — as she had not been taught that this world was wonderful but had been told that there were no wonders at all — she sat down and started to draw wonders — a myriad of wonders!
It has already become people's habit to ask in front of a drawing or a painting, „Whatever the artist wanted to express by this?" — hasn't it? And so, I too am joining the ranks of Dzoja's commentators, here, in the margins of her great drawings, in order that a complex world should not become simpler, but, I should say, more intricate — through my interference. Her small, chubby man who has got into the habit of throwing his suspenders over his ears, who putters all the time in Dzoja's drawings and whose adventures we have followed in the comic strips carried by the Belgrade weekly comic paper Jez and the Literary Gazette, — well, this little chap grabbed me by the lapels and took me into that world where houses are sometimes so unreal that we suddenly find ourselves in an infinite irrationality; these houses in which owell the gnome and his large family, are reduced to some lines suggesting' some other space, but not the known three-dimensional architecture in which terrestrials live. The same is true of that house on which a tree casts its blue shadow. It is only the shadow th?t is blue. Of course, impressionists discovered the coloured shadows before; they were horrified at black and the authentic tar that would be used again, later, by Dali. But Dzoja also seems to be playing with the spirit of impressionism: ,,Here is your b!ue shadow! But all the rest is black for you." — The newlyweds Albert's and Victoria's green and blue eyes, respectively, do not count — the bride and the bridegroom drawn by Dzoja — because they belong in her world. But is it eyes, after all? Or maybe the inhabitants of that planet have such eyes? The blue shadow falls upon the house which is not necessarily a house. There is a window, outside, hanging like a picture, on its only one wall. Such eyes Albert's and Victoria's eyes, are looking out such windows and watching their own world; they can see the blue shadow cast on their house; but the shadow is not fading out, no — it is rising in the space, as if the space itself, suggested by the flat plane of the white paper, were still nothing but a mere surface; as though the world inhabited by the gnome and his family were superficial, that is without the third dimension here and there, so that the blue shadow could leave its traces on it and on those places above the house where it would otherwise disappear. Disappear — in view of our terrestrial laws!
At this point, one should talk about a real adventure of shadows
The blue shadow of Dzoja's pseudoimpressionism in the black-and-white world of these drawings is not lost, however, in the space which is not necessarily a space; for this world is paradoxical. The blue shadow betrays the leafy tree and presents it without its leafage; the shadows here live their independent life. There is another Dzoja's, drawing where a man's shadow is materializing, coming to life, getting up from the ground — in the infinite space-surface play — and sitting down. Still another drawing presents a shrinking and wrinkling shadow which does not seem to be wanting to leave an enclosed space and stretch in the light of the setting sun. It seems as if these shadows live their own independent lives. This planet, the planet of Dzoja's world, like Alice's Wonderland, mocks ours, mocks Descartes's, mocks the rationalist, three-dimensional and excessively explained world in which inmpressionists paint the blue shadows of a false optimism and joy of an awful fin de siecle. In the play of Dzoja's paradoxes the shadows revive, perhaps according to that Ksfkian principle, the humorous inversions of the metaphor; if one can say that „men become shadows", then there will be an inversion, a humorous revolution in which shadows will rise and become something like creatures, but those creatures that have already betrayed the meaning of their existence. If it was possible to say that shadows were faithful, which was proverbial, then, after these drawings, one cannot say that any longer .
No more, because the blue shadow has betrayed the leafy tree and failed to outline its leaves, as if this very shadow lives in its own biology, in some other times, in some other season. And in still another inversion, in the surface — space relationship, the kids of these strange creatures hang their swing on the shadow.
However, many other lawless things are happening here, because Dzoja's world has its own laws which are absurd to us: the setting sun is supported by the horizon, to the left from the winding and wrapping road. The humor of these drawings also results from this new lawfulness by which Dzoja evades all the positive laws of an excessively simplified positivism.
And, quite unexpectedly, Escher comes up in our conversation
Not mentioning Kafka in our conversation whi'e standing before these great drawings, Dzoja suddenly remembered Escher. 1 wondered if Dzoja too was a member of that secret fraternity which, here, at this point, I should conditionally call — the Lovers of the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher. I have met many of them; some of them are famous painters. Dzoja mentioned Escher while standing in front of a drawing of a big clock with no dial, suggesting that time was lost in no-time or in a timeless space.
It seemed to me that there was no apparent reason for mentioning graphic artist Escher. We started talking about Escher's architectural imagery, about his staircases on which one goes downstairs when going upstairs, about his dimensional warp, many paradoxes and evaded laws on which his work was based. This graphic lawlessness results from a justified rebellion against the world that is much too clea;. Everything is clear to fools only. But positivists believed that nothing is so unclear that one should bother about. Escher was in a different lawlessness. Dzoja is a humorist among the rebels in a revolution of spirit. She watches this world consciously and intentionally through Albert's green eyes. And she sees a myriad of wonders: the enlivening shadows, on which the swings hang, the wrapping road, the windows arranged even over the human body — the windows so badly needed by those ,,who draw inward upon themselves" .
In the algebra of the „dangarous equations" graphically solved by Dzoja, as well as by graphic artist Escher, we could not accurately determine where the humorous line ends and where the serious begins. The seriousness of these drawings comes from the fact that they are an answer to one of our frivolities. They respond with a humorous relativity to one of our legalized relativities. Dzoja has drawn a world of her own which is at war with our world, the world that has been Descartesean so long and Escherean so little. Like Alice, she felt a strong desire for wonders, and — as she had not been taught that this world was wonderful but had been told that there were no wonders at all — she sat down and started to draw wonders — a myriad of wonders!
Miro Glavurtic
Datum objavljivanja: