22.08.2019.
Opening the War Painters Exhibition marked the Military Museum Day
On the occasion of the Military Museum Day – 22nd August and marking its 141st anniversary, an exhibition titled “Works of war painters 1912-1918 – from the Collection of the Military Museum” has been opened in the Gallery of that institution, today.
Congratulating the members of the Military Museum, State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence Aleksandar Živković, on behalf of the Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin and on his own behalf, said that it was one of the most respected cultural institutions in the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, as well as in the country.
- The Military Museum has a valuable collection of paintings consisting of about five hundred works by nineteen war painters who were educated at art academies across Europe and around the world, and after the war broke out, they returned to serve their homeland – the state secretary recalled and added that these artists, facing death and fatigue, many times to the point of exhaustion, have expressed their patriotic feelings for years through a variety of war themes.Before declaring the exhibition open, in the presence of Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, Major General Petar Cvetković and Head of the Department for Tradition, Standard and Veterans, Colonel Duško Šljivančanin, Aleksandar Živković quoted the words of our Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić, who said that art and will for resistance wins over everything, even death itself.
He also pointed out that the exhibition will briefly take us back through history and show us that war, although known as the art of destruction, will never be able to break down the spirit and art of a nation.
Head of the Military Museum, Lieutenant Colonel Gradimir Matić, recalled that, in numerous Serbian fronts, from Cer to Thessaloniki, from retreat to liberation, forty painters deployed in war units had created their works.
- Following the life on the front and the operations of our army, they created valuable material and works of art, as a lasting testimony to the efforts, struggles and ideals of our ancestors, and in addition to exile and martyrdom, the tragic war years brought the most significant impressionistic canvases of Serbian art.
He also emphasised that the works of war painters at humanitarian exhibitions in Europe, organised during the Great War, made the world aware of the horrors to which the Serbian army and people were exposed, which makes them particularly important.
The author of the exhibition, senior curator Ljubica Dabić, expressed her satisfaction that, by organising such an exhibition, due attention is paid once again to war painters.- In addition to marking the 141st anniversary of the Military Museum today, it has been a century since the first exhibition of war painters, held in Belgrade – Dabić reminded, while speaking about specific fates that happened to the works of military painters she pointed out that many paintings were exposed in buildings and offices and were destroyed in 1941.
The Military Museum in Belgrade, located on the bastion of the First Southeast Front of the Belgrade fortress, was founded on 22 August 1878 by the Decree of Prince Milan Obrenović on the proposal of Minister of War Colonel Sava Grujić. On that day, Prince Milan Obrenovic announced a proclamation of signing the peace treaty between Serbia and Turkey, that is, the state independence of the Principality of Serbia. This also testifies to the significance that was attached to establishing of cultural institutions in a newly liberated country.
Today, this institution is an indispensable segment of the historical, cultural and social life of Serbia, and it won this position by the museological activity - collecting, preserving, exhibiting and publishing objects, or traces of material culture, especially its military element, on the territory of Serbia and Serbian ethnic space.
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