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Zuzana Chalupova may not have founded Kovačica's naïve art scene, but she was certainly its foremost member. She was once taken to the Louvre Museum in Paris to view the world's great works of art. As she approached Leonardo's Mona Lisa, Zuzana's French hosts asked her what she thought of the painting. After gazing at Da Vinci's masterpiece for some time, she waved her hand flippantly and said: "Leonardo could have done better!"...The following day Le Figaro printed this statement over an entire page and ran a large photograph of the unusual female artist from the Banat village of Kovačica; she wore a kerchief wrapped around her head and had ten wide underskirts, as colourful as Easter eggs. The following day, the Paris gallery that was displaying her paintings was packed with visitors.
Those who knew her called her Mama Zuzana. She had a captivating effect wherever she happened to hold an exhibition – be it Paris, Tokyo, Brussels or Vienna. She was also a favourite of photographers and cameramen; Mama Zuzana took the art world like a hurricane, carrying the fame of Kovačica's naïve art the world over…
Many national and international celebrities visited Kovačica to meet these naïve art painters and to view their works. The visitors included such luminaries as François Mitterrand, legendary football player Pele, Ursula Andres, Alain Delon, Juan Carlos, Mstislav Rostropovich, Franco Nero... In 1989, some rather strange visitors knocked on Zuzana Chalupova's front door. They were an odd bunch who dressed and acted rather differently; they called themselves the Rolling Stones and were led by a certain Mick Jagger!
It was still early when we arrived. Morning mist shrouded the village of Kovačica. At the Babka gallery we were welcomed by naïve art guru Pavel Babka and associates, along with numerous canvases from a sixth generation of Kovačica's naïve artists – Jan Glozik, Pavel Hajko, Pavel Cicka, Zuzana Veresky, Zuzana Jarmuckova, Vieroslava Svetlikova, Nada Korenj, Marina Svetlikova, Klara Babka...
Who executed the first stroke of the brush?
— The founders of naïve art in Kovačica were Martin Paluška and Jan Sokol. In the period between the two World Wars, they had the courage to say: "I paint". Others were also into painting, but they were somewhat shy to admit such a thing. In the countryside, a "real man" was supposed to have mighty horses, he wore boots and occasionally banged his fist on the tavern table when he wanted to make a point. Such men were the most sought after in the countryside. A girl, on the other hand, was recommended by how many skirts she wore. A girl could wear ten or even twelve of these basic garments at the same time!...
Village dwellers were for a long while unaware of the painters in their midst. Then, one day, the famous art historian Oto Bihalji Merin came to Kovačica... After that, large limousines – the likes of which had never before been seen by the villagers in Kovačica – began arriving with ever greater frequency. They would park outside the homes of the village painters, prompting wild rumours about the painters; some of their paintings, it was said, were worth so much money that they could buy two pairs of pigs, even a colt, for the price of a single painting! These facts left quite an impression at the time. The painters included the brothers Verenjski, Jan and Ondrej, as well as Jan Knjazovic, Martin Jonaš and Jan Strakušek. As all of this unfolded, the women knitted, embroidered and wove…But some also painted; with Zuzana Chalupova, the circle expanded to include Alžbeta Čižikova, Eva Husarikova, Katarina Kožikova... They painted ceaselessly. Nearly 50,000 paintings came out of Kovačica over the past 50 years! Many of them hang in famous galleries around the world, or in private collections on every continent — remarks Pavel Babka.
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At the gallery and in the home of the oldest painter, Katarina Djuriškova, we saw canvases whose motifs remained clearly within the confines of ethnic-Slovak folk life, and yet they invited us to step into a fairytale world. In addition to canvases, the painters of Kovačica practice their craft on virtually any object.
Nothing can hide from their brushes; chairs, pumpkins, mirrors, plates, irons, furniture. The paintings depict traditional scenes such as reapers swinging scythes, sleds full of children racing across snow-covered meadows, merry-makers in colourful dresses at a wedding party, brides in elaborate floral headgear on black and white horses, going to church on Christmas Eve. Depicting interiors is another frequent motif. A peasant's room, a cradle with child, an old man by a stove, a night pot under the bed. |
There are also aged cupboards, kitchen cabinets, beds with mountains of fluffy pillows, and walls that reveal intricately executed decorative border patterns and motives of roses, wreaths and branches. Even objects such as house ceilings, roof ridges and beams are decorated in the paintings so that they resemble St. John's Day flowers and herbs.There is no defining line between reality and imagination. One hardly knows whether the world of Kovačica has populated the paintings, or whether the paintings have come off the canvases into the world...
Later, we made it to the village of Aradac near Zrenjanin, where we found a unique diatonic accordion orchestra that is singular in the world; its members are older women – Ana Puderka, Ana Hučok, Erža Janošik and Erža Jančo. They play small diatonic accordions dubbed meška, in Slovak.
| The musicians are rather colourful, as if they had stepped off a Mama Zuzana or Katarina Djuriškova canvas. The band members wore large felt kerchiefs with silver thread edging, brocade blouses with buriškas at the shoulders, large underskirts with embroidered hems, and broad shortish cotton skirts. They held their mother-of-pearl-coloured diatonic "button box" Hohner and Morelli accordions with some twenty button-like keys and eight to twelve bass keys each. |
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It was an age-old custom for these women to learn to play this instrument from an early age. Not long ago, nearly every girl in the village could play this type of meška accordion. In the daytime, they would work the fields, from harvesting and hoeing corn to pruning vineyards. Come evening, they watered the lawn and flowers in front of their homes, to refresh the air, so to speak. That is when the young would begin to gather. The girls played their accordions and sang, while the young men would converse and joke. It was at gatherings such as these that young people would fall in love for the first time... |
