Resnik

The dilemma about whether this work was among the rejected pieces which Nadežda entered for The First Yugoslav Art Exhibition, has now resolved by our understanding of the freedom of the brushstrokes and her approach to details: the painting belongs to the middle, i. e. the later part of her first Serbian period. It was given as a gift to Rihard Jakopič before his departure from Belgrade (“Were people frightened by my studies which you brought with you?” the artist asked him in her letter of 1 October 1904). Since it represents a part of Rihard Jakopič’s legacy, Resnik must be the same piece as the one listed as A Village Street in Resnik in the application form for the 1910 exhibition in the Jakopič pavilion in Ljubljana. Its composition was based on the perspective of a winding village road, flanked by a line of trees and wooden fences, merging into the bottom of the painting. It is painted in oil on cardboard, the paint applied in uneven strokes whose width varies from thick paste to glazes so thin that they barely cover what is below. Judging by its style, it belongs to the end of the Resnik cycle (1905), painted around the Petrović family estate in Višnjica; according to its colours, it represents a transition from the prevalent Munich red and equally expressive palette which includes green, blue, white and yellow, with infrequent half-tones, reflecting the author’s belief that technique is “the expression of character and temperament.” It is suggestive of her future technique where the structure would reflect the form, plasticity and rhythm of the painting, but also the nearness or distance of the object, until she adopted an almost relief-like structure during her stay in Paris.