Tag: 1897.

Bela Čikoš Sesija, Pietà, 1897

Bela Čikoš Sesija
Pietà, 1897
oil on canvas
155.5 x 100cm
MG-507

Bela Čikoš Sesija (1864 – 1931) was one of the leading representatives of Symbolism in Croatia. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Julius Berger and Leopold Karl Müller, and in Munich where he specialised under Wilhelm von Lindenschmit. He stayed in Italy on two occasions, where he studied classical heritage in order to be able to realize Isidor Kršnjavi’s decorative program for the building of the Department of Religious Affairs and Education. In April 1892, he travelled to Venice, Padua and Florence, while on his second trip he stayed in the environs of Naples during 1893/94, when he painted landscape studies in plein-air, in the tradition of the European Grand Tourists. Having returned to Zagreb, he collaborated with the painter Vlaho Bukovac, which is evidenced by his painting titled Bukovac in the Act of Painting Gundulić Contemplating Osman, 1894. He then attended the German painter Carl von Marr’s school in Munich. He returned to Zagreb in 1895, where he stayed and painted for the remainder of his life. Čikoš’s educational role in Croatian art is significant, since he started working as a professor at the College of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb in 1907, which transformed into the Academy of Fine Arts in 1921.

Pietà from 1897, is a characteristic work of Symbolism from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. In his depiction of the religious theme, Čikoš intelligently uses the modern, “photographic” frame that cuts through the vertical composition in the middle of Christ’s torso, thus emphasizing the act of lamentation. It is further accentuated with a dramatic, contrasting illumination that leaves the protagonists’ faces only indicated in the shadows while the symbol of Christ’s martyrdom, the crown of thorns, in the lower left corner, is depicted on an ascetic background of the stone cube upon which Christ’s body is laid, in incandescent light.

Text: Ivana Rončević  Elezović, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Vlaho Bukovac, My Nest, 1897

Vlaho Bukovac
My Nest, 1897
oil on canvas
89x131cm
MG-3890

Vlaho Bukovac (1855 - 1922) is considered the founder of Croatian Modern art. His curious and adventurous spirit led him to America as a child. Thanks to the panslavist writer Medo Pucić and Bishop Strossmayer, he went to study at the École des beaux-arts in Paris. He initially painted under the influence of Alexandre Cabanel, an eclectic painter of historical and religious compositions in the spirit of official academism. Over time, Bukovac became acquainted with Impressionist painting and Orientalism, developing his own artistic expression by drawing on Realism, Impressionism, and occasionally Symbolism. After having completed his studies in 1880 and thanks to the successes he achieved at the Paris Salons, he set up a studio in Paris. He simultaneously painted in Dalmatia and England, and in 1893, he settled in Zagreb. He is considered one of the initiators of the construction of the Art Pavilion in 1895. In 1897, he founded the Society of Croatian Artists, which opposed Kršnjavi’s Croatian Art Society, established in 1879, inviting artists to paint en plein air and thus providing impetus to Croatian Modern art. Under his influence, painters began using a brighter palette, abandoning the brown hues that dominated galleries at the time, and creating a variant of Croatian realistic painting that became known as the Colorful School of Zagreb. Because of his disagreement with Kršnjavi, Bukovac first moved to Cavtat in 1898 and then to Prague in 1903 as a professor at the local academy.
The museum painting My Nest from 1897 is an intimistic scene of Vlaho Bukovac’s desired life with his family in Zagreb. The title itself suggests the warmth of home. The depiction of the charming family is reduced to figures placed in front of an ornamental drapery, sitting or lying on a couch with a cover. All three figures gaze directly at the painter, their father and husband, thereby closing his nest. Morphologically, Bukovac begins to dissolve the form using small, spotty brushstrokes to gradually eliminate contours through sfumato.

Text: Dajana Vlaisavljević, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023
Translated by: Robertina Tomić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023

Robert Frangeš-Mihanović, A Philosopher, 1897

Robert Frangeš-Mihanović
(1872-1940)
A Philosopher, 1897
bronze
MG-588

Robert Frangeš-Mihanović was a prominent modern Croatian sculptor and medallist, who studied in Vienna (1889-1895) and Paris (1900-1901), where he became friends and socialised with Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (1907), and was amongst the first instigators and promoters of artistic life in Zagreb.
Frangeš-Mihanović was a master at, first and foremost, bronze sculpture, although he was just as skilful at working with marble, a fine example of which is his portrait bust of Saint Dominic from 1893.
The different stages of development of his career featured different styles, ranging from Academicism through Symbolism to Modernism, i.e. the earliest instances of Impressionism in Croatian sculpture. His mature work reveals his own expression featuring Realism in his unrestrained modelling of figures.
In the initial stage of his career (1893-1914), he succeeded in harmonising the stylistic features and elements of Art Nouveau, Symbolism and Impressionism, which is why the works he modelled then are considered to be of the highest quality in his entire oeuvre.
Frangeš-Mihanović’s A Philosopher sculpture is from this period. It is a study of his that he did for his Philosophy relief, the most original of the four allegories he modelled for four buildings of the University of Zagreb. Philosophy adorns the Golden Hall of what was then the palace of the government’s Department of Worship and Teaching (10 Opatička Street in Zagreb’s Upper Town), headed by his patron (and art historian, politician, painter and writer) Izidor Kršnjavi.
The form of Frangeš-Mihanović’s A Philosopher is compact and is modelled in the spirit of Rodin’s concise representation of a powerful inner substance.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Bela Čikoš Sesija, Pietà, 1897

Bela Čikoš Sesija
Pietà, 1897
oil on canvas, 155.5 x 100cm
MG-507

Bela Čikoš Sesija (1864 – 1931) was one of the leading representatives of Symbolism in Croatia. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Julius Berger and Leopold Karl Müller, and in Munich where he specialised under Wilhelm von Lindenschmit. He stayed in Italy on two occasions, where he studied classical heritage in order to be able to realize Isidor Kršnjavi’s decorative program for the building of the Department of Religious Affairs and Education. In April 1892, he travelled to Venice, Padua and Florence, while on his second trip he stayed in the environs of Naples during 1893/94, when he painted landscape studies in plein-air, in the tradition of the European Grand Tourists. Having returned to Zagreb, he collaborated with the painter Vlaho Bukovac, which is evidenced by his painting titled Bukovac in the Act of Painting Gundulić Contemplating Osman, 1894. He then attended the German painter Carl von Marr’s school in Munich. He returned to Zagreb in 1895, where he stayed and painted for the remainder of his life. Čikoš’s educational role in Croatian art is significant, since he started working as a professor at the College of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb in 1907, which transformed into the Academy of Fine Arts in 1921.

Pietà from 1897, is a characteristic work of Symbolism from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. In his depiction of the religious theme, Čikoš intelligently uses the modern, “photographic” frame that cuts through the vertical composition in the middle of Christ’s torso, thus emphasizing the act of lamentation. It is further accentuated with a dramatic, contrasting illumination that leaves the protagonists’ faces only indicated in the shadows while the symbol of Christ’s martyrdom, the crown of thorns, in the lower left corner, is depicted on an ascetic background of the stone cube upon which Christ’s body is laid, in incandescent light.

Text: Ivana Rončević – Elezović, senior curator at the National Museum of Modern Art© National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

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