Red Terrace

During his stay in the south of Serbia, in Macedonia and on Mount Athos the brush strokes of Milan Milovanović became more casual and he began to paint the light. “After typhoid, lice, hunger, corpses strewn along the River Drim and in the Albanian snowdrifts, Italy looked even more magical than it was. He started working. He painted around Rome, the Campagna di Roma, on Capri, in the Bay of Naples, and later in the south of France, in Aix-en- Provence, on the Cote d’Azur, in Nice and Beaulieu. These three years of painting in exile belong to the most beautiful years of his creative work, when he gave the world his most mature pieces, the ones which first come to mind when his painting is mentioned”, Momčilo Stevanović, painter and art critic, wrote about that period in Milovanović`s painting. We can find an echo of that approach in the canvas entitled Red Terrace, painted in Dubrovnik during his stay at the Adriatic in 1920. Here, the painter took a step further by using sunlight to emphasize the force of the colour itself. Fascinated by the Mediterranean surroundings, the intensity of the blue sky and sea, the whiteness of the rocks and the glare of the sun’s rays, Milovanović started painting outdoors again, in full daylight. Known for frequent changes in his brushstrokes, the artist was trying out different ways of applying paint. Thus, the composition Terrace in Dubrovnik (National Museum, Belgrade) was painted with compact brushstrokes and thick paste, whereas in the Red Terrace Milovanović came close to his former paragon, Sisley, with short brushstrokes and blots of colour. The Adriatic sun, the shimmering air and the attractive motif brought out all of Milovanović’s best features as a painter. The painter himself, fascinated with what he saw, tried to thrill others as well. His analysis of light on the rocks and the vegetation, as well as the colours, was no longer impressionist. Instead, the impression was achieved through an authentic force of the colour and the shimmering of clear, vivid tones.