Slovak town in Serbia draws visitor with naive art (Feature)

By Ksenija Prodanovic Jul 17, 2010, 3:06 GMT

Kovacica, Serbia - This sleepy ethnic-Slovak town in northern Serbia, surrounded by green plains and corn fields, may look like any other town in the area, but it is one of the world's best- known centres of naive art.

Rows of small houses with nicely kept gardens, a church in their midst and old ladies in woolen skirts and head scarves riding bicycles give this town of 8,000 people the feeling of a place frozen in the early 20th century.

But every spring and autumn hordes of art lovers, especially Japanese and Americans, visit Kovacica, 50 kilometres north of Belgrade, in pursuit of unique works of art, from paintings to decorated vases, from plates to irons.

Art is considered naive when it is created by people without formal training. It is characterized by awkward and child-like drawings, strong use of patterns, bold colors and simple designs.

It's difficult to confuse Kovacica's naive art with others. It draws on the themes of the traditional Slovak village, with farm animals and scenes from corn fields and home interiors - all in bright colors taken from Slovak clothing.

'Naive painting in Kovacica began in the period between the two world wars,' Pavel Babka, a gallery owner, told the German Press Agency dpa. 'Men painted stall doors with horses, and women began painting pottery and walls with ornaments and colors from their garments.'

In 1952, on the 150th anniversary of the town's founding, the first naive artworks from Kovacica were exhibited, putting the place on the world map.

Since then, Kovacica can boast having produced some 55 naive artists, among them world-renowned Zuzana Chalupova, Martin Jonas, Jan Knazovic and Katarina Djurisova.

Djurisova, who lives in a small house a couple of metres from Babka's gallery is the oldest living artist in Kovacica. Her colorful decoration of plates, vases and irons has influenced many artists.

'I began as a house painter,' Djurisova, 78, told dpa. 'But it was hard work, so I began decorating pottery using motifs from old embroidered shirts I had,' she said pointing at a plates painted with bright colors and meticulously ornamented.

In the 1990s, Chalupova advised Djurisova to move on from decorating plates to painting on canvas.

Djurisova's paintings tell the stories of now forgotten everyday life in Kovacica and its customs. The paintings are filled with people in fields, in taverns or houses, on the streets.

A couple of houses down from Djurisova lives the Knazovic family and one of town's youngest artists - Natasa Miailovic. Mialovic grew up surrounded by the colorful paintings of her mother, Ana Knazovicova, and her grandfather, Jan Knazovic.

'I am a third generation of painters,' Miailovic, 32, said while showing her canvases.

Her style is different from her mother's and grandfather's. It is spare and devoid of unnecessary details.

'I paint my own symbolic scenes, my subconscious,' she said. It is not just the visual arts that make Kovacica special. Just around the corner from the Knazovic household lives Jan Nemcek, a violin maker.

Nemcek is a second-generation violin maker and a choirmaster in a local church. He learned his trade from his uncle in 1960 and has passed it on to his son.

He is one of the few violin makers in Serbia and was the first to open a violin-making school in Slovakia, where he fled during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

'I love this job but could not have made it without the support of my wife,' he said while standing in a sunlit workshop playing a Slovak tune on an 18th-century violin.

His wife is an artist - painter, pottery maker, wood carver - and his daughter is an amateur painter as well.

The universal artistic bent of Kovacica's residents remains a mystery.

'Whatever it is, it is unique and it must be preserved,' Babka said.

He and his wife, Klara, also a painter, are pushing for UNESCO to include Kovacica on its world heritage list.