After the fall of the Serbian lands under the Turkish rule, from the middle of the 14th to the middle of the 15^th centuries, the change of the artistic production was only natural. As political borders changed, the Orthodox lands of the Balkans found themselves within wide Turkish Empire. The consequence was a direct mixture and fusion of different artistc influences which came from a far. Until the end of the 16^th century the utter influence of the Byzantium dominates in the religious art, occasionally transformed to an extent. The persistence of the clergy in preservation of the national and religious identity of our people is also present in the artistic production, as well as in textile artifacts meant for decoration of the churches and the monasteries, in those used in liturgy, but also those used for the vestsments of the church officials.

Earlier Byzantine models dominate in iconography, sometimes modified, however, due to the time distance.Western, as well as Russian, influences were more visibly accepted during the 17^th century. They are more present in details of compositions then in their whole.

Beside Byzantine, the influences of the West are noticeable in the decoration of textile objects, especially in the floral decoration, although it may also be marked by Oriental models, especially Middle Eastern and Persian. In geometric decoration of the textile there appear, along with Byzantine, decorative elements characteristic of remote China. These elements are also found in fresco painting of the earlier period.

During the 17^th century, the predominant influence on the ornamentation, especially floral, comes from the Southern, Greek, regions and the Aegean islands (at that time under the strong influence of Venetian Republic). The influences also come from Athos and Levant.

The choice of the fabrics, as well as the embroidery itself, is based on the contrast of the base and the embroidered ornament, but in some objects they fuse. Satin, velvet and, rarely, damascus were used as foundation. The embroidery was made with precoius gilded thread, sometimes entwined with the multicoloured silk thread or the silk thread of the same colour. The choice of the stiches corresponds to those used in older periods, but new ones appear, too. Sometimes various metal plates, under the influence of the West and Russia, or spirally entwined metal threads and, only rarely, mother of pearl, appear sewed on the fabric.

The objects of sacral character decorated with embroidery preserved on our terrain were created from the middle of the 15^th to the end of the 17^th century, and are rarely of monumental dimensions; usually, they are small in format. Some of them in the stylistic and iconographic sense, as well as in the method of production, attain high artistic level, although those of more modest artistic values are more frequent. They reflect the economic situation, as well as artistic capabilities of their creators and comissioners. Some of the items are characterized by the influence of icon painting. They are rarely dated and rarely bear artist’s signature. However, more often they feature the names of donors. This also speaks of more difficult economic situation of our population during that period, especially in the 17^th century, but it also points to the constant need of the people to give gifts to the churches and monasteries.

The objects of sacral character decorated with embroidery belong to groups of similar objects, according to stylistic and iconographic characteristics. On the basis of analogies found in literature, especially during the inspection of the preserved material found in church and monastic treasuries, as well as in museums, to which I had an access, I have been able to place them more accurately in both time and space.

The history of production and dissemination of icons made of copper alloy in the 17^th – Century Russia reflects, in a way, the contemporary developments in Russian Orthodox Church. In the middle of the 17^th century there was a schism in the Church leading to the formation of two basic currents. The first one, led by Patriarch Nikon, conducted a serious of reforms and interventions in liturgy, liturgical books and other aspects of church life, shaping them in accordance with Greek orthodoxy. The aspiration of Patriarch Nikon to establish domination over all orthodox peoples, tending to strengthen the position of the Russian patriarch himself, and his politics raised stormy reactions. The most eager opponents were the Traditionalists, led by the proto-priest Habakkuk. Rejecting all the novelty in liturgy, fighting bitterly against the reforms and any Western influence, the Traditionalists were subject to persecutions; therefore they withdrew to Northern Russia, the Siberia and the White Sea region. The schism left a deep trace in the Russian church, weakening its power, while the very principal protagonists, Nikon and Habakkuk, ended their lives rejected and in exile. Keeping the main influence in the field of metallurgy during the 18^th century, the Traditionalists controlled the production of crosses and icons made of copper alloy that embodied and preserved their consistent traditional beliefs. Bronze icons became extremely popular outside of the circles of Traditionalists: of small dimensions, handy and easy to store, made of durable material, they were bought and given as gifts with prayer and in memory of specific saint, events, places of pilgrimage and people.

The process of acceptance of photography in Serbia was almost concurrent with the same process in Europe, thanks to the similar social conditions. For the members of a young bourgeois class that rose in both social and economic terms during the 19th century, it served as another, quicker and more accessible, means to emphasize the newly acquired status and wealth. From the seventh decade of the 19th century, in all larger towns in Serbia the professional photographic studios had been open, which primarily produced portraits, as the most wanted and the most profitable, while other genres were only in the making.

The most prominent studio in Belgrade at the turn of the centuries belonged to the court photographer Milan Jovanović. In taking the photographs of the members of bourgeois class, which constitute the larger part of his opus, Jovanović had to follow their requests that were largely defined by current social conventions. Thus, the portrait photographs by Milan Jovanović represent a document of its own kind, speaking about urban life and social relations in Serbia at the turn of the centuries. In this essay they served as an illustration for the research into position of woman in Serbia of that time.

The basic postulate is: seeing and the seen in painting can bestudied through indirect forms of representation. The mediation of sight points to the intentional nature of artificial optical and visual phenomena of art. Intentionality enables the comparison of visual and lin-guistic effects. Potential asymmetry of the visual and the linguistic aspect of art (painting) is the problem elaborated in the paper.

Representation is a structural, epistemological, semantic and technical method of creating or producing a work of art which, visually and optically, refers to a real or fictional object, being, situation, or event.

Visual meta-language is the signification and structural order of a visual work of art by means of which other works of art are shown and represented, as well as aspects of the art world, stylistic patterns, genre rules and typified schemes, ways of establishing of meaning in a work of art, language-pictorial games, visual properties of a work of art, and conceptual and ideological over determinations.

The mimesis of mimesis (representation of the represented) is a Post-modernist eclectic (post-metaphysical, post-historical) conception of art whereby a painting does not represent reality, the original essence of art, or the direct emotions of the artist.

During the conservation process, on the amber beads (6-5th century B.C.) excavated under foundations of the church of St. Peter in Novi Pazar, now the study material in The National Museum in Belgrade, the traces of treatment were noticed. These are more or less regular bilaterally symmetrical forms made of segments of a sphere and torus or the sphere and cylinder, as well as the irregular polygonal and the beads in the form of slices.

On the basis of the traces of treatment of the half-products and the finished amber beads, it is possible to follow the production process and get a notion of applied technology. The traces of treatment, noticed on our amber material for the first time, point to manual production as well as the use of a (primitive) machine and of a tool. Big differences in quality of one type of beads produced in the same way, manually or with a machine, clearly indicate different hands, pointing to the existence of either one workshop with a number of workers, or several smaller workshops, and they speak in favour of local production.

Observations of some approaches to the process of production contribute to our notion of practice in the treatment of amber in the Central Balkans during the Iron Age.

In The Museum of the Applied Art in Belgrade there is bottle of almost cylindrical shape, made of thin, colorless, transparent glass. The neck of the bottle is cylindrical and very long. The rim is of an irregular round shape made by the application of glass thread. The neck, shoulder and the most of recipients are decorated with spiral flutes, turned to the right. The bottom is extremely concave. The bottle is almost completely coated with a layer of milky white irridation. It was found in the very commercial center of Sremska Mitrovica.

There is an extreme similarity between our example and a small bottle from The Hans Cohn Collection, dated into the 16^th century. Its place of its provenience is most probably Murano. Although almost identical with the bottle from The Museum of the Applied Arts, it differs in size, the colour of glass, the direction of the flutes and somewhat in shape.

On the other hand, two whole long-neck cylindrical bottles with strigillated decoration and a dozen of fragments, which are in size, form and colour of glass almost identical with the bottle from The Museum of the Applied Art were unearthed in Lower Town of The Belgrade Fortress, during archaeological excavations in 1978. These were found in the remainder of a building with more recent ceramic findings and one metal, partly recognizable object (a chit or a button). On the basis of the excavated archaeological material, the building is dated into the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19^th centuries.

Sremska Mitrovica fell into Austrian arms after almost two centuries of Turkish rule, during the war of 1710-1718. As a trading center on Sava it attracted mostly the residents of the surrounding area. Modest trade existed between Sremska Mitrovica and other towns, as well as with Belgrade, Vienna and Budapest. At the beginning of the 19^th century there existed a glassmaking activity, and in the middle of the century three glassmakers worked in the town.

The production of glass in Venice was in decline at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th centuries, but the glassmaking based on its tradition continued to prosper in other European countries, such as Bohemia and Austria. Historic conditions in this time period as well as the great similarity with bottles produced in Styria point to Austria as a possible exporter of this type of bottles, to Mitrovica within its boundaries, and to Belgrade that largely bought glass from the neighbouring Empire.

Pavel Akimov Ovčinjikov (1820/1830 – 1888) was a coryphaeus of the art of goldsmithing and silverwork that in his works marked the whole Russian, thus world applied arts. With Faberge, Ovčinjikov was the best known and the most important jeweler in Russia and his factory worked from the second half of the 19th century to 1917.

He owned factories in Moscow and Petersburg in which turnover rose with a dizzying success, and he was the founder of the first crafts school in Russia in which a large number of students was trained. One of the founders of Russian style in making of gold and silver objects in which the national and the centuries-old tradition of orthodox culture merged, and which was the leading art force in Russia from the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries. That period is called „the golden age“ of Russian silver.

In the works of Pavel Ovčinjikov the national ideas were expressed in subject, that is, in form and ornament. The revival of the Old-Russian forms and ornament, as well as the revival of classical jewelry, namely, the Old-Russian techniques of production (enamel, glass enamel), and bringing it to the contemporary level, made the works of his factory to stand out with originality and extreme mastership.

Ovčinjikov has a great merit in creation of the arts and crafts school and the perfect system of education in production of silver and gold objects and the development of the jeweler’s craft. The best-known artists and painters of that time worked for him, designing and modeling the objects.

He presented his works in many exhibitions in Russia and other countries: The Moscow Manufacture Exhibition in 1865, The International Exhibition in Paris in 1867, The World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873, and Chicago in 1893, The World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.

Pavel Ovčinjikov was greatly respected and received the honourable citizenship of Moscow; he was city representative at The Moscow Duma, at The Trade of Commerce, and The Moscow Stock Exchange Committee. He also held an honourable title of the Supplier for the Court of the Heir to the Throne, Prince Aleksandar Aleksandrovič (Nicolaevič).

Many Russian and world museums, preserve the works made in the factory of Pavel Ovčinjikov and his heirs Michael, Alexander, Paul and Nicolas Pavlovič (The State-Historical Museum in Moscow, The Russian Museum of the Decorative and Applied Arts in Moscow, The Hillwood Museums and Gardens in Washington, D.C., and other museums).

The Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade possesses the richest collection of Russian gold and silver objects in the country. It features the objects produced in the shops of the best-known Russian jewelers and silversmiths of the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries. Those made in the shop of Pavel Akimov Ovčinjikov stand out with their significance, beauty and exeptionality of form and ornament, as well as the virtuosity of the production.

The collection of clocks in The Museum of Vojvodina has been built through a long-lasting process of collecting, and with its stylistic and artful craftsmanship it gives an insight into the development of clocks in Vojvodina over two centuries.

The Museum has been interested in clocks, objects of a narrowly defined use, primarily because of their artistic, namely visual and stylistic characteristics. The criterion and the principle of acquisition led to the purchase and the collection of the objects that were made or used in Vojvodina. They were bought directly from the families, their heirs or collectors from this region. The clocks come from wealthy families, where they were preserved as marks of certain times that cherished the taste for art objects and their luxurious appearance. As an object clearly utilitarian in character, in a domestic ambience clock was also a decorative object with artistic design that reflected the taste as well as the social status of the commissioner.

The oldest clocks in the collection, the Baroque tower clock and Rococo and Classicist tabernacle clocks, come from 18^th century. The need for clocks grew with the pace of everyday life at the beginning of the 19^th century, and it was reflected in a rich typology of clocks during the Bidermaier, the last grand style. After the Neo-Rococo, there comes a period of stylistic disintegration that led to the retrospection of historic styles in every area of the applied arts.

With industrialization in the second half of the 19^th century, wide masses of people needed an accurate, movable and cheap clock, the principal function of which consisted in its being an alarm clock. The alarm clock was the first mass-produced functional clock. The Collection features the alarm clocks of famous European firms, such as Junghans, Kintzl, Gustav Becker, Doksa and Zenith.

An example of the late Middle European Secession also exists in the Collection, and an example of Art Deco clock represents the clean and bold forms in harmony with „the aesthetic of the machine“.

After the Second World War, clocks tend to grow smaller. The electric clocks, either the battery operated ones or the plugged- in ones, grew popular. The industrial production in Yugoslavia – in the beginning limited to alarm clocks, and to be extended to the production of the wall, desk and street clocks – starts at the beginning of the 50’s, with opening of the „Insa“ clock factory in Zemun. Thus clocks ceased to be an imported luxury item.

The fragments of the gold embroidery with the name and the title of the Bulgarian emperor Ivan Alexander (1331/1332- 1371), recovered in 1974 in the St. Nicholas church at Staničenjo near Pirot (1331/32), are being preserved in The National Museum in Belgrade. These are the fragments of the vestments of the emperor Ivan Alexander, made during his rule. The gilded silver string, with silver string and single threaded silk string embroidery was done on silver fabric, of diagonal weaving. Today, the fabric and the embroidery strings are ochre.

In this paper we deal with the reconstruction of the embroidered textile, apart from its detailed description, made during its first conservation in 1977, and then during the second in 1998, together with the assumptions about possible reconstruction that was not made during the conservations. The reconstruction of the fabric, during the second conservation, was made on the basis of those better-preserved parts of the gold embroidery and the direction of the woof, as well as the information offered by the photo documentation made during the first conservation treatment. As the documentation at our disposal did not give detailed information about the appearance of the fragments of the fabric in situ, in the latter conservation treatment the starting point was the reconstruction made during the first one, which consequently underwent certain changes. It should be stated that it is not possible to give any certain reconstruction of the fabric without an investigation into the complete field documentation.

During the second conservation treatment, 75 fragments were found. The dimensions of the then reconstructed strips are: the first 8.5 × 49 cm, the second 8.5 × 48 cm, the third 8 × 46.5 cm, the fourth 8.3 × 48 cm, the fifth 8.2 × 47.5 cm, the sixth 7.5 × 47.5 cm; the dimensions of the fragment 24 are 7.5 x 9.3 cm. Strips with numbers 1 to 5 had the same motif: a plant with a flower and buds – a deer – a plant with a flower and buds – a two headed eagle – a plant with buds – a crane – a plant with buds and a flower –an inscribed plate surrounded by plants. The sixth strip is decorated with a motif of a double arcade, above which one eagle is preserved. The photographs shot during the first conservation that witness that some fragments had been lost between the first and the second conservation, indicate that at first there was one more composition with motifs in a wreath, apart from the reconstructed ones.

Detailed descriptions and photographs of the fragments of the embroidered textile from St. Nicholas at Staničenjo will be, together with the data from the field documentation and a text by R. Ljubinković, as well as the conservation photodocumentation, is the starting point for new attempts to reconstruct the fabric and the vestment.

Milena Vitković-Žikić opened the exhibition Pirot Kilim by the author of the exposition Bojana Šuvaković and conservator Dubravka Bijelić, aided by a team of collaborators, on the occasion of the celebration of the Day of The Museum of the Applied Art. The subject of the exhibition lies in the domain of the authentic traditional decorative and applied art, which became one the hallmarks of the town of Pirot.

Not many countries in the world have preserved the traditional ethnic decorative art, which is at the same time varied and full of content. In this treasury, textile production achieved high level, and rug production, especially in Pirot, belongs to works of remarkable stylistic characteristics, of unique content, colour scheme and interpretations, which also strongly influenced other circles.

The author represented a significant segment of Serbian traditional applied arts in the Exhibition which represents characteristics of the development of the Pirot kilim, weaving, the content of ornamental motifs, the use, and so on. The material is thoroughly studied, professionally exhibited and allows a thorough knowing of this part of cultural heritage. The exhibition is followed by an analytical and scientific catalogue (in Serbian and French) written by Milena Vitković-Žikić. It features a large number of sketches, drawings and photographs. Although the object of the exhibition has already been a subject of studies and expositions, the author maganed to add several links in the chain for better understanding of rug weaving in Pirot and to shed light on both known and new facts. This is the reason for which, I believe, it was altogether purposeful to mark the Museum’s Day in 2001 by the exhibition Pirot Kilim.

The art team G:DESIGN (led by the architect Vladimir Gugl in actual ensemble: graphic designer Ivana Gugl, interior designer Ivan Gugl, industrial designer Miloš Joksimović and architect Đorđe Milanović) is seen as a unique entirety, whose short but frequent activities, mostly in the central urban zone, affirmed the respectable and, at the same time avantgarde, approach to shaping of interiors under the auspices of a representative architectural complex of the 19th and 20th centuries’ styles. Belonging to the generation of artists born during 70’s (which experienced large transfer of knowledge under the pressure of negative selection, and extremely bad economic and social surrounding), made a reputation with the domestic investors and professional public with an impressive design of restaurant and shop interiors of new typology, whose basic stylistic belief is founded in international revival of the spirit of modern art and constructivism. Their flexible approach to design, respectful not only of the historic architectural heritage, but also of the users, the function and the projection of micro urban complex into the future, they made ambiences that, with the details designed with originality, harmony, bold colour scheme, inspire urban population of all generations, the population which, in spite of unbelievable quantity of negative circumstances, preserved the immanent wish of the Balkans and Mediterranean man to „get out“ to the street, to square, people. In several examples one can discern characteristic models of action of the team that superimposed an answer to the challenge of uniqueness of space to this formation of a uniform stylistic handwriting, thus endowing each of them with an authentic aesthetic dimension. So, near the oldest newspaper endowment in the Balkans, „Politika“, there grew out the interior of „Café Firm“, all in contrasts of chrome details, black-and-white „graphism“, of „retro“ palisanders, as a counterpoint to the traditional bohemian meeting place in the neighbourhood. The tendency of descending into the subterranean spaces with ultra-modern designs by which old European cities, such as Amsterdam, preserve and revive their cities’ nuclei, is followed by an Internet café „Net-zone“, in the nearby Svetogorska Street. And, while here the futuristic vision of the inventory is present, a sophisticated retro pop art is discernible throughout a disco club „Cvijeta Zuzorić“ (in reality, the basement of an art pavilion built in 1928), bringing in mind the respectful „New York Times“, in order to mark this place on the map of Belgrade’s restaurants of new generation. „Portobelo“ (café, sweetshop, restaurant) near Slavija (the mortal wound of Belgrade’s urban design) represents the crown of the work of this young, but fruitful and extremely harmonious, team. The „European atmosphere“ (achieved by the luxurious materials used for floors, in the shapes of upholstered details and in the light-motive of „Barbery“ graphism) is obviously seasoned by specific warmth and hospitality – the signs of resurrection of Belgrade’s „genius loci“.

In his book (Ivan Sotirov. Chiprovo Goldsmith School. The Middle of the 16th – the Beginning of the 18^th Century. S. 2001) the author investigates an important aspect of post-Byzantine culture in the Balkans, the goldsmithing of Chiprovo, which has not been fully and profoundly studied up to now. The text is structured into several parts: introduction, four chapters and a catalogue of works attributed to Chiprovo craftsmen; the catalogue includes 275 pieces, many of which are jewels. I. Sotirov mainly studies the authorship of unsigned and often undated pieces of jewelry by attributing them to a particular prominent master or a workshop at Chiprovo School, thus widening the circle of already known and published works. In his research he puts forward some firm and daring statements in order to define separate workshops and trends within Chiprovo School proper, as well as in Bulgarian goldsmithing at that time; he aims at precise and particularly directed answers to questions on the rise, formation and progress of the School; the career of each prominent master; the development of style and the innovations in Chiprovo craftsmen’s works.

Sotirov’s work is a challenge to students, especially his significant theses that change some assumptions on the development of Bulgarian goldsmithing during the Ottoman rule.

The book begins with a survey of the historical events in Belgrade during the 16^th and the 17^th century that were significant for the town developing from a military fortress to a Turkish town, and continuous with the catalog of published native and foreign ceramics material. Although the ceramics of the 16^th and the 17^th century are usually designated as „Turkish“, the author suggests the term „town ceramics“ which in the right way represents its disposition of recognizable ceramics, mainly used in the urban center of the Ottoman empire.

The Typology of town ceramics of the 16^th and the 17^th century includes 19 different forms, 11 of them are dishes and 8 are objects used in everyday life of Belgrade inhabitants of that time. Among the dishes, used for preparing, cooking and baking food, storing groceries or serving food and drinks, the most diversified are the bowls (34 types) and pots (33). The jugs (26), lids (16), plates (7), pitchers (12), goblets (17), saltshaker (1), earthenware pans (11), strainers (3) and jars (6) are also represented. There are, besides the dishes, various ceramics artifacts as pipes, inkwells, toys, cups, flutes. Objects that were integral parts of interiors were, as well, numerous: candlesticks, stoves, acoustics resonators. There also appear objects for private use as night pots.

The characteristics of the ceramics from the mentioned period of continuous Turkish rule (1521 – 1688), that represents a transitional phase of production between medieval and modern times folk ceramics, are discussed in the next chapter. Three groups are distinguished, two of them representing direct inheritance from the Middle Ages, from the Serbian provinces and central Europe, and the third is Osmanli ceramics, imbued with ceramics inheritance of China, Persia and Byzantium. The Central European influences already presented through the Late Byzantine and Balkan (Serbia and Bulgaria) production were incorporated to a great extent just after the Turkish conquest of south Hungary, while the ceramics from the Osmanli epoch arrived to the territory of Belgrade in the third decade of the 16^th century.

In this way systematized ceramics material in the monograph Belgrade Ceramics in the 16^th – 17^th Century could be a stimulus for the continuation of studying and publishing abundant unpublished ceramics material from the Osmanli epoch from the other sites at the territory of Serbia.

Sava Sandic (1915) is a member of the large and talented generation of modern educated Serbian sculptors which appeared on the art stage of Belgrade, Serbia and former Yugoslavia after the Second World War. At the beginning he was under the influence of the older outstanding artists that cherished the traditional, realistic and naturalistic concept of the sculptural expression. Later he progressively evolved towards the subtile stylization and the reduction of forms of his mainly human figures and moved to poetic and lyrical realism. In that manner he created his large and small statues, public monuments, sculptures of the nude women, so called park statues, numerous portaits of well known people, animalistic plastic...He exhibited a lot and for a long time he has been famous, aworded and recognized first of all as a sculptor of the humanistic orientation with pronounced psihological shaded figures and rafined modeling and treatment of the form.

The Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade, publishing the monography with the title „Small Decorative and Applied Plastic“ (2002), wanted to affirm and present Sava Sandic to the public as a special master of the series of objects from the field of applied arts and it succeded in that task. Untill then those artistic works remained, to a certain degree, in the shadow of his highly respected sculptural activities. From the monography it can be concluded, in addition to everything else, that Sandic in his creativity did not have two criterions – „higher“ for the sculpture and „lower“ for the small plastic and various object of applied art. The rich experience in sculptoral work and exceptional knowledge and control over the different materials (stone, wood, marble, bone, plaster, copper, silver...) were useful during manufacture of the countless lockets, reliefs, medallions, medals, portrets, ornamental objects, decorative plates, bowls, vases, ashtrays, unique jawelries... He was occupied with this activity continuously – from the beginning of his career to nowdays.