The Poetics of Childhood in the Works of Veljko Petrović and Ljubica 'Cuca' Sokić

Lecturer: Miloš Zarić, ethnologist-anthropologist, curator of the House of Legacies

Veljko Petrović (1884–1967) and Ljubica Cuca Sokić (1914–2009), two striking artistic personalities with different sensibilities, devoted themselves to the theme of childhood in their literary and illustrative work, shaping it through their own deeply personal poetics. Despite their different approaches, their oeuvres, when viewed within this theme, show a surprising structural compatibility. In an effort to reach deeper layers of interpretation, we will rely on theoretical approaches and methods developed within the anthropology of art, a subdiscipline of cultural anthropology. This approach allows for a comparative consideration of different artistic practices, such as literature and illustration, and for examining their mutual semantic connections.