How detailed the background is executed will always catch the attention, whenever we look at this piece, and we will know for sure that the mountains are the part of the answer.

There is the story of hope and joy behind this.
So, king Denethor, blinded by tragedy and fear, refuses to ask for help when the Orks’ threat is inevitable.
Hobbit Pippin sneaks out and fires the beacon himself and this means a cry for help is sent out.
Then, we get an incredibly inspiring and eye-watering scene of beacons firing all the way out until Aragorn sees the message in Edoras, the capital of Rohan.

Bosnian painters gave us lots of amazing pieces celebrating hard work.
Gabriel Jurkic’s ‘Kod ovaca’ from 1918 tells a story of how life, work and nature intertwine.
It’s almost giving the Shakespearean sense of ‘All the world’s a stage’ as he describes how the states of human beings flow from one to another.

We can see the sheeps, some of them are younger, some of them are older. Some of them are busy with the grass, some of them are captured by the environment, they are interested, excited.
The shepherdess is busy knitting, and, of course, the yarn is a co-product from the sheeps. Somehow even her hair collected into a braid is a part of this play.
We take care of the sheeps and they give us the yarn in return.
We knit the clothes for the family, while our mothers braid our hair. And then their hands are cold and we give them the mittens we made.
And then these hands take care of the field. The circle closed.
We can see a similar story in Gabriel Jurkic’s work ‘Pogled na Livno’, but here nature itself is a character, as well as the village in the corner.
The horizon is light, it’s blue and green, the village is detailed and this gives the whole another perspective to look from.

As of the partnership. As of the people, who work, support and provide for each other without envy and competition, but rather working on one goal all together.
Apparently, the shepherdess is focused on her knitting, rather than on appreciating nature around her. She doesn’t have time for this.
More of that – in Đoko Mazalić’s ‘Diggers’ from 1918.

And when we finish the work, we come home.
Absolutely surely there’s something about family and home in Bosnian culture that stands out. You can feel it through all forms.
Arguably, Safet Zec is one of the most important figures in Bosnian art. He created pieces that portray tender love and admiration of the home comfort.

Even though there are no people in these works, you can still feel the strong presence of family through how the artist named these paintings – My Sister’s Room and The Room of my Mother.
In many ways Safet Zec’s works remind of classic Bosnian film ‘Kod amidže Idriza’ directed by Pjer Žalica.

It’s a story about a family being disconnected and reunited again, as it is unfolding similarly to Zec’s works in terms of soft colour spectrum and overall feeling of cosiness.
Unlike Safet Zec, painter Omer Mujadžić in his works puts more people into the interior.
See the paintings by Omer Mujadžić and Behaudin Selmanovic collected by Prof. Aida Abadžić-Hodžić for ‘Bosnian Experiences’:

In some way, Interior by Mustafa Pezo gives us the answer or at least a hint.
As he portrays his atelier, it’s easy to imagine frames rather as mirrors, whereas the artist decided not to get very detailed with the particular pieces.
Thus, home is the place where we can see ourselves clearly.
Home is childhood, laughter, freedom to be who you are.
And food made by parents.

We eat in hundreds of places throughout our lifetime, in different cities with different people.
Still, eating at home and sharing food is a whole other philosophy.
We can see how much attention the director of ‘Kod amidže Idriza’ gives to this issue.

More of still life we can find in the works of Behaudin Selmanović.

These make us rethink how we serve food for others.

We want everything to be nice and clean, we choose the best sets for coffee, we lay tables with beautiful stuff to show how much we care for who we host. We want them to have a good time.
But do we do that for ourselves?
Do we serve ourselves beautiful antique plates and a bouquet of flowers on the table, when we eat?
When we are alone, do we even eat at the table?

This work by Safet Zec may portray just that.
How we grab the last clean plate or some from more or less clean, eat while working or how we make a quick very basic meal for 5 minutes.
Funny, that we would never do that to the ones we love.

Out of the blue, we get robbed of our homes.
Wandering and living on the run goes through the works of Ismet Mujezinović, as well as through graphics of Mevludin Ekmečić.

You take your kid by the hand and you run. It may be war, it may be poverty, it may be ambition for a better life. All you know is that it’s never gonna be easy.

We can find the same story in some older works, like this painting by Roman Petrović.

If you’re lucky, you have time to pack your stuff. If not, at some point of your life you just walk out of that door and never come back.
How time freezes, when this happens, is captured by the artist Edin Numankadić in his installation ‘Traces of War’. It shows the artist’s studio as it was in Sarajevo when the city was under siege.

Then, after long months and years, you sort of start to see the place. Like this white noise, that Bekir Misirlić portrayed, is getting shaped into your new home.

They start asking questions, we are always having these silly small talks on what we were and where we lived.
It’s described by the poet Mak Dizdar:

The saddest thing of all is that they will never really feel how beautiful, how rich, how hospitable our motherlands were.
Until they weren’t.

from ‘Death and the Dervish’ by Meša Selimović.
And then, it’s done.

from ‘Death and the Dervish’ by Meša Selimović.
As the narrator, the Dervish, meets former brother in arms, the first thing that appears in his mind is Kara-Zaim’s heroism back in combat days.
Through the stories told about our lives, through legends and maybe even myths we reach immortality.

Through our kids we reach immortality, because they are the continuation of us.