Izidor Kršnjavi
Two Beggars, 1874
oil on canvas
41.7 × 33.8 cm
MG-116

Izidor Kršnjavi (1845–1927) was a Croatian art historian, painter, and prominent cultural and public figure who, from the 1870s until the Croatian Salon exhibition of 1898, and even up to the eve of World War I, held a dominant—later still significant—role in shaping cultural and artistic life in Croatia. His monumental importance to the history of Croatian art and culture is reflected in numerous cultural and educational initiatives and his pioneering role in founding key Croatian institutions.
He was the first professor of art history at the University of Zagreb (1877–1918), initiated the founding of the Art Society (1878), which in turn led to the establishment of the Modern Gallery (today’s National Museum of Modern Art) in 1905, the Museum of Arts and Crafts (1880), and the School of Applied Arts (1882). Kršnjavi also served as the first director of the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters and editor of its first catalogue, and he reorganized the Archaeological Museum. He championed the revival of traditional crafts and folk art.
Kršnjavi’s Italian landscapes and genre scenes—characterized by small formats, a freer painterly technique with visible brushstrokes, clear daylight, and an overall atmosphere of spontaneous, direct observation of reality—embody a more modern understanding of realism in painting. Within this tradition, though less numerous than his landscapes and city views, are his studies of the human figure, especially depictions of Italian peasant women and other common folk, a subject frequently explored by both Croatian and foreign artists working in Italy. To this group belong Kršnjavi’s studies of beggars, beggar women, and street vendors, such as Two Beggars (1874), which, like comparable studies by Guglielmo Ciardi, verge on the genre theme. Similar figure studies were also created by artists such as Corot and other European painters of the period. In the context of the classical tradition, figure studies—like landscape studies—served two primary purposes: as exercises in direct painting from life (i.e., from a model) and as a means of studying costume and pose for later use in studio compositions with pastoral themes.

Text: Ivana Rončević Elezović Phd, Senior Curator, National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb