Post-filozofija i slikarstvo

A reading of „Slikarstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini 1945-1990“ (Painting in Bosnia and Herzegovina [1945-1990]) by academician Nikola Kovač reveals, in what one might call re-deconstruction, that it is one of the most essential and fascinating reflections on painting in Bosnia and Herzegovina – together, of course, with the free development of his own philosophy or aesthetics, his unusually profound culture of the visual. It belongs with other primary texts on the history of art and modern painting in this country, for it is a polyphony of the intellect, which never tells itself that it will grow weary; this culture of the visual knows that Dionysus cannot be possessed, and that everything is deeply grounded if it hovers in the air, if it offends no moral statement or artistic expression. Nikola Kovač writes of the painting of Bosnia and Herzegovina with both literary and a specifically aesthetic virtuosity. This is a history of art and modernity that is open, and that resembles the drama of a historical world. It knows just how many pitfalls and dangers lurk on the way to a clear hermeneutics and expression. Thus I too have begun to believe that it is far remote from the miseries of the historical and the social; that it is a legitimization of the world and society that has found its unique and creative expression in painting, in the opus of the great painters who have displayed the artistic values of their works on the European and world stage. We already know what André Malraux has said: that moderation is the only way to confront destiny, to oppose the banalization of evil, the wastelands of narcissism and megalomania, the alienation that manifests itself nowadays as happiness that is sufficient unto itself, the happiness of “wretched, visionary, betrayed humanity.”