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SCULPTURE OF DRAGAN PANIC
It is safe to say that everyone who had the privilege to meet Dragan Panić got the same impression: a gentleman, elegant, eloquent, gracious, with upright posture, long grey beard and a hat. Even now, when he is gone, his spirit permeates our city through his life-long work: it is sufficient to recall such works of his as The Wounded Soldier, a sculpure in Great Park, the monument at Metino Brdo or bust of Vuk Karadžić located near the National museum in Kragujevac. Dragan Panić worked persistently almost until his last breath. His studio was the space where the ideas came to life, faced each other during the creative process and finally materialised in his works, some of them exhibited for the first time in the Museum 21st October. He was born in 1912. in Teferič near Kragujevac. Having completed his education in 1935., he enrolled in Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Department of Sculpture, where he stayed until 1939. As thousands of other soldiers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he also was the prisoner of war and sent to the military camp Stalag 4F in Germany. In 1944., he won an honorary award at Swiss Red Cross contest for POWs. His winnings were sent to Kragujevac, but never arrived to the hands of the artist. Panić is well-known as the author of several monuments and busts, one of the founders of LUK (Fine Art Association Kragujevac) and its first president, and an owner of a street name in Sušica borough in Kragujevac.
Having been a French student, educated in the finest tradition of French classicism and Art Nouveau, Panić is characterised by cultivated, sophisticated style, ease of performance, and elegance. Dragan Panić had his share of misfortunes, yet they left no scars on his work, and for years his style had not significantly changed. In his quiet and non-intrusive way, he tried to capture and materialise eternal love and harmony. This is the reason why his works are not representations of the real world, but a prototype of perfect form, an aspiration to provide things essentially beautiful and harmonious with visibility and tangibility by employing plastic means. Regarding his numerous busts and portraits, changes are incremental and their stylisation is more emphasised. The artist wanted to adhere to physical features of portrayed persons, but reject the ephemeral, evancescent and provide solid material with the intransient within a person. In his ouvre the masterpiece must be his self-portrait. Not only is it laden with artist's personal features, but his gaze brooding afar, both mild and dejected, bears witness to a prototypical artists who understood the bittersweet nature of his profession.
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Galerija MB
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