TWO WOMEN, ONE PORTRAIT. PORTRAIT OF KSENIJA ATANASIJEVIĆ BY NADEŽDA PETROVIĆ

Abstract

The paper will discuss the portrait of the young Ksenija Atanasijević (1912) painted by Nadežda Petrović. The portrait is characterized by Nadežda’s modernist motivation and desire to innovate Serbian painting, culture and the general emancipation of society, as well as the emancipation of women. The portrait was created in the year when Ksenija Atanasijević, a family friend, graduated, and most likely after Nadežda’s return from Paris (January 1912). The portrait bears the stylistic features of Nadežda’s advanced modernism, liberated during her work in Paris. It can be compared to the portrait of Ksenija Atanasijević made by Uroš Predić in 1917 – as a complete stylistic, ideological and symbolic counterpoint to Nadežda’s spontaneous vision of the „free eye”. Predić constitutes Ksenija as a young intellectual, just before enrolling at the faculty. Nadežda’s portrait can emphasize the most important fact – the unappreciated efforts of women in a patriarchal society, the struggle for education and the dignity of the profession, constant proving in front of society of disapproving women’s intellectual, academic and artistic achievements. Nadežda Petrović since 1915, Ksenija Atanasijević almost all her life, faced rejecting of their endeavors by dominantly male society, academic or artistic environment and largely unappreciated by critics.