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DOOR – GATE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Author: Miloš Matić Ethnographic museum in Belgrade, January - Mart 2007 |
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When man equipped his shelter with a door, he turned it into his
dwelling. This important civilization progress significantly changed the
idea of human living. Man no longer protected himself and retreated but
started to dwell. But, by constructing increasingly big and complex
dwellings, man built more and more symbolism into them. The very
dwellings, or particular elements of them such as a door, became
material representatives of metaphysical ideas to an ever greater
extent. The exhibition Door – Gate Between Two Worlds is primarily a story about a front door at the time when the traditional architecture was at its peak, before it was influenced by authorial architectural ideas. This is the time when a door – as well as the entire traditional architecture – already became heavy with diverse symbolism, when it turned from a mere physical protector of man into a supernaturally powerful entity, which was prepared to stop not only the evil-minded, but various unpredictable otherworldly forces and creatures. At the same time, this is a door that has become a mirror of the house, narrating about those living in the house. It was a door that saw a host off to his travels and greeted a guest, welcomed a bride, hid the upright or the cruel, impeded or let vampire, witch, pestilence, incubus, or some other otherworldly creature in. A door hides and reveals at the same time, and it is one of those rare cultural elements wherein so strongly materializes overall metaphysical dualism which stemmed from continuous fluctuation in man’s rational and irrational perception of his reality. |
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The construction of a door in the traditional architecture generally follows the evolution of dwellings and other buildings with doors. The most primitive forms of doors were made of wicker attached to a wooden framework, or of several trimmed planks tied together to make a simple partition at the entrance of the dwelling. With the construction of houses with walls made of better and stronger material (log cabins, sheds, timber-framed adobe houses), better quality doors were made by masters who built the very house. These were made of several planks and were very strong, with a simple yet efficient support system and a primitive lock. One of the characteristics of old-type doors is that they were entirely made of wood and did not have a single metal part, not even to bind them together. Some details were decorated with incised geometric ornaments. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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With development of carpenter’s and locksmith’s trades, the production of classic and better quality doors, made partly of metal and entirely functional, originally started in the north to be followed by other regions of Serbia. Doors made by craftsmen are always made of several parts and stand out as aestheticized to a certain degree. The simplest form of door decoration is the positioning of profiled slats or larger wooden panels thus providing simplified surfaces in relief. Such surfaces are subsequently carved. The peak of craftsmanship and aesthetic skills is reached in doors entirely decorated with exquisitely rich floral and geometric ornaments. Decorative compositions are most frequently divided into several orderly panels with very meticulously executed ornaments. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The principal function of a door is to protect people and property in a
house or some other building. In addition to physical protection, a door
sheltered from cold weather and domestic or wild animals. However,
although pronounced social stratification is not a characteristic of
rural societies, a door could have a social-emphatic function in the
traditional architecture, like the very building it is a part of. An
opulently decorated door, primarily in houses, was used to point out a
more favourable social position in the local community, and it therefore
appeared only in houses of local notables (major landowners, rural
elders, priests, etc). A door was used as an index of one’s own social
status. |
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In the system of traditional religion, the front door has very clear and very pronounced boundary symbolism. It is located on the border of two spheres of reality, on the border of outdoor and indoor areas. In the social sphere, a door is a boundary between categories “us” and “others”, while in the sphere of the irrational conception of the world, it is on the boundary between the two, semantically different spheres arranged by mutually opposite principles. On one hand, there is sacred space of the house, the space structured and known, whose borders are clearly defined and which is controlled by man. On the other hand, there is undefined outer space, unstructured and entirely unknown, hence dangerous to man. A door is on the border and has features of both of those, and therefore, the attitude to it is ambivalent. At the same time, it is a dangerous place, but also a place with mystical powers that man attempts to use in a magic fashion. Since a door is a dangerous place, it is tabooed, but, on the other hand, a door is a place where the ritual sacrifice is offered or incantation chanted in order to use their supernatural powers to the benefit of man. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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As a boundary place, a door has a clearly defined role in scenarios of all the important rituals of transition, such as baptizing, wedding, and burial. In the modern conception of reality, a door keeps its boundary function and meaning. It remains a borderline of the two spheres, although these two spheres are no longer sacralised, and the semantic difference of the spheres is based on entirely profane and rational ideas. A door, therefore, has a multidimensional role in day-to-day life not only in the traditional but in the modern culture as well. It is not only essentially a constructive, simple tool to close openings on various buildings, but rather a complex communication tool. Even when at issue is communication, the role of a door does not end in social, economic, and spatial communication, but rather shifts to a symbolic level, where a door is used as a tool of communication with others, regardless of the fact that others may belong to a sphere of the everyday, the profane, or come from the sphere of the religiously conceived world. |
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