Poveznice hrvatskoga i talijanskoga slikarstva od 1872. do 1919.
Authors:   , Rončević Elezović Ivana 
Published: January 2024

Italy of the 19th and early 20th century is characterised by the specific artistic legacy, as well as a specific relationship towards modernism, that is a constant subject of research in international publications end exhibitions. Its cultural role as the unavoidable destination in the context of the phenomenon of the Grand Tour is markedly important, especially during the course of the 19th century. Travels of the Italians to the European countries north of Alps, as well as the numerous visits and stays of the foreigners in Italy (which would occasionaly turn into permanent residence) contributed to the formation of a vibrant Italian artistic scene in a complex exchange of experiences. While acknowledging Italian specific characteristics and contributions to the European artistic scene, it is nevertheless important to recognise its interweaving with the Mediterranean and (Middle)European traditions, especially those of the French, Austrian and German provenance. The aforementioned was facilitated by historical circumstances, such as the sporadic Austrian government over certain parts of northern Italy. The painter Giovanni Segantini played an especially prominent role in connecting Italy with the rest of Europe due to his extreme popularity and international presence. The establishment of international exhibitions, such as la Biennale di Venezia in 1895, brings new impetus to this interchange. Traditionally strong connections between Italy and Croatia, especially its maritime area, lose its intensity after the fall of the Republic of Venice in the year 1797. However they do not disappear altogether. Although Croatian artists were trained predominantly at the Academies in Vienna and Munich at the time, Italy was their third important destination chosen over two reasons: firstly for the reasons of direct training at the Italian Academies, and secondly as the destination of the European trend of travel to Italy, as the land of classical heritage, natural beauty and specific quality of southern light. Additional historical connection between the two countries was constituted by the fact of the joint Austrian government over Croatia and north Italian regions of Trentino and parts of Friuli-Venezia Giulia by the end of World War I, as well as Veneto during the periods from 1797 to 1805 and from 1815 to 1866. It is important to take notice of the fact that one of the most prolific and vibrant artistic centres of the period, Paris was the rarest choice of Croatian 19th century painters. Connections between Croatian and Italian painting between 1872 and 1919 were realised within three different artistic tendecies of the European art at the turn of the 20th century: firstly the practice of the plein-air landscape study in Italy as preparation for studio compositions; secondly the different manifestations of symbolism; and lastly the inclinations towards avanguard components in the painting of the early 20th century. The book Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition written by Peter Galassi in 1991, as well as the exhibition In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-Air Painting held in 1996–1997 in Washington related to it, proved to be the key in understanding the context of the plein-air study painting in Italy as preparatory work for grand studio compositions. It explaines how the tradition of the landscape and cityscape study in Italy founded in 1780s was codified by the Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes' influential 1800 treatise Elémens de perspective practique, à l'usage des artistes, suivis de Réflexions et conseils à un élève sur la peinture, et particulièrement sur le genre du paysage. Camille Corot’s Italian studies from the period between 1825 and 1828 represented the culmination in this strain of painting. Their purpose was didactic and their main characteristics were: painting in the open in direct study of nature, the effect of sketch due to the rapid brushstroke and spontaneous approach to painting, the use of oil technique usually on paper mounted onto cardboard, the codified topography of motifs following the ‘prescribed’ Italian itinerary, painting during summer months as well as the conscious choosing of the noon or more rarely early evening lighting, the choice to depict fragments of simple, anonymous, rural architecture or details of vegetation, for instance motifs of a tree or treetrunk. Although the tradition of plein-air study could be found elsewhere in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century, Italy was the key area at the turn of the 19th century where it flourished more intensly in the international context of artists and travellers from all around Europe. This was especially true of its regions around Rome and Naples. The significance of the ambiance of (southern) Italy for the history of the European landscape painting was noticed by the Croatian art critic Josip Pasarić in 1902. Seen in this light the relationship between the studio composition of the academic realism and spontaneous plein-air study painting becomes complementary. Galassi explains that the Scuola di Posillipo was formed in the Naples area during the second quarter of the 19th century as a provincial echo of the international school of painters in Italy practicing plein-air study. Moreover, it was founded by a Dutch, Anton Sminck van Pitloo. It formed the basis on which the later Neapolitan schools of painting in the second half of ottocento were built, enriching their expression further through contacts with the Florentine Macchiaioli and contemporary French painting. The next important Italian destination for Croatian painters was Venice. After a period of crisis it succeded in forming a unique expression through the synthesis of its distinctive tradition permeated by the artistic influxes from the rest of Italy and wider international contacts (especially after the establishment of the Venice Biennale exhibitions in 1895). Following the described complexity of the overall context the connections between Croatian and Italian painting should be evaluated in the elaborated terms of interdependences on wider European scene. Croatian painters Izidor Kršnjavi, Ferdinand Quiquerez, Nikola Mašić and Bela Čikoš Sesija set off to Rome and Naples from the Academy in Munich, where the tradition of the Italian journey was especially long cherished and formed an inseparable part of the education process. Their production of Italian plein-air landscape and cityscape studies should first and foremost be interpreted in the context of the tradition of the international school of painters in southern Italy established in classicism, onto which Italian ottocento schools of painting build upon. In Quiquerez and Kršnjavi the influence of Corot's legacy transformed through the painting of the Venetians Ippolito Caffi (more pronounced in Quiquerez) and Guglielmo Ciardi with his interpretation of the Macchiaioli and Scuola di Resina style of painting (more felt in Kršnjavi) can be discerned. Influences by Giacomo Favretto often mentioned in critique turn out to be nonexistent. In the painting of Nikola Mašić, on the other hand, within the same tradition connections to the Neapolitan painting of the second half of ottocento are more clearly articulated, namely those with: Filippo Palizzi, Mariano Fortuny, Francesco Paolo Michetti and Scuola di Resina. Key to the understanding of Mašić's painting however prove to be the painting of Filippo Palizzi. Just like Mašić, Filippo Palizzi enjoyed depicting animal world and was primarily a painter of genre scenes with occasional landscape studies done in macchia technique. Large part of Mašić's oeuvre after 1880 was formed by large scale Handtuchformats portraying genre scenes in accordance with Arcadian transformation of the legacy of Filippo Palizzi in the work of Francesco Paolo Michetti, alongside colouristic virtuosity and glitter of the embellished realism of the Catalan Mariano Fortuny y Carbò, who was also a protagonist on the Neapolitan scene of the second half of the 19th century. The introduction of the element of the modified legacy of Filippo Palizzi in combination with the fortunylike chromatics through interpretations of Francesco Paolo Michetti, as explained in the thesis, sets out a new context for the fortunismo of Nikola Mašić. Also, some examples of Mašić's painting, such as Slikar u bari (Painter in the marshes), 1878–80., Zatvorena vrata (Closed door) study, 1880., or a small detail depicting a flock of geese just above the water surface on the painting Guščarica na Savi (Goose Girl by the River Sava), 1880–81., display a speecific pennellata technique that creates vibrant surfaces in the manner of Antonio Mancini, whose painting is for the first time mentioned in connection to Nikola Mašić's production. Within this same prolonged classicist tradition of the landscape and cityscape study, less than two decades after Quiquerez, Kršnjavi and Mašić had sojourned there, Bela Čikoš Sesija also episodically embraced the premises of the southern Italian landscape and cityscape painting in the Neapolitan area. His plein-air landscape and cityscape studies with motifs focused on details, characterised by formal reduction and constructed relation of light and shadow build upon the traditions of the international school in Italy, Neapolitan and Macchiaioli painting. Inclination towards rural simplicity in the choice of motifs seen in the paintings of Bela Čikoš was also the legacy of the international school of painters in Italy, continued in the Italian realist ottocento painting all the way to the Postmacchiaioli era of the last quarter of the 19th century, the period of Čikoš's southern Italian soujorn. Nocturnal cityscapes which Čikoš sketches in Italy prove to be transitory towards symbolist painting. Although the tradition of the execution of studies in the lighting of the early evening is well documented in the history of the painting of the international school in Italy, as well as there are well known instances of nocturnal scenes in the context of the Italian ottocento painting of realist provenance, such as the cityscape of Naples by Adriano Cecioni, the painter that connected Florentine Macchiaioli and southern Italian Scuola di Resina, these studies by Bela Čikoš should be understood as an indication towards his later symbolist expression. The latter is affirmed by the choice of the subject of Pietà in a southern Italian study from the year 1893. Everything considered, we come to the conclusion that the Italian episode of Bela Čikoš should not be taken as a divergence in his oeuvre, but rather as a typical formation path of a 19th century painter, witnessed by the example of Arnold Böcklin, himself being a pivotal protagonist of the European symbolism, who spent much of his life in Italy where, among other things, he painted realist landscapes. As opposed to the landscapes painted in Italy, the post Italian landscapes by Bela Čikoš should be considered in the context of the German variant of 'impressionism'. The other important centre of the Italian realist tradition was Florence and the Macchiaioli. Vinko Draganja and Mato Celestin Medović were trained there. Apart from being a student of the Florentine Academy, key to intrepretation of Draganja's painting turned out to be a so far overlooked detail from his Autobiography of his friendship with the Italian painter Domenico Pesenti. Pesenti's oeuvre is directly comparable to that of Vinko Draganja during his Italian years. As shown in the thesis for the first time, the affinity in the choice of themes and motifs, as well as the composition and painterly approach, characterised by the transformation of the Macchiaioli legacy, within its marginal and belated echos and emphasising more pronouncely the narrative component of the painting, can be discerned. Also, while interpreting this kind of painting, the names of the Induno brothers, Domenico and Gerolamo from Milan (Pesenti was trained in Lombardy) with their continuance of the tradition of a specific genre painting should not be overlooked. Mato Celestin Medović spent a prolonged period of unsystematic training in Italy from 1880 till 1886. Within this scope of time, he also sojourned in Florence meeting Vinko Draganja there and studying at the private school of Antonio Ciseri. Traditionally Medović's Italian years and his artistic training there were not considered very important, but rather the major significance was given to his later Munich training. During the research for this thesis however, I came to conclusion that Medović's Italian experience was far more important than earlier presumed. Through the analysis of representative pieces of Medović's portraits and religious compositions clear connections to his Florentine teacher Antonio Ciseri can be seen. In addition to that, Medović's familiarity with the painting of of the 'Florentine Alma-Tadema', Giovanni Muzzioli turns out to be of outmost importance for his artistic expression, which has been noticed for the first time here. Muzzioli was a famous Florentine painter whose popularity reached its peak during Medović's sojourn in the city and whose painting was characterised by a hybrid amalgam of history painting and European tradition of plein-air and genre, especially that of the Macchiaioli provenance. In the first ever display of comparative analysis between Medović's and Muzzioli oeuvres, compatibility in the choice of themes and motifs, painterly approach and style is shown. Both painters treat representative history painting in a skillful academic manner, while the plein-air, landscape, cityscape and genre studies showcase free and sketchy pennellata with the simplified and reduced to essentials painterly approach. Especially interesting in their oeuvres is a special hybrid category of the so called 'historic genre' (generismo antichizzante / la pittura ‘di genere’ in versione greca e romana / la pittura storica di genere), in which figures in antique costume are arranged and added into directly studied plein-air landscape. The biggest surprise was the discovery of the formidable influence of the Italian painting on Bakanal from 1893 by Medović, the painting that has been firmly and unanimously considered as the crown jewel of Medović’s Munich training and was previously almost exclusively connected to the style of painting of Karl Theodor Piloty. There were however some early examples in the Croatian art writings considering the compatibility between Medović’s emblematic painting and Muzzioli’s Al Tempio di Bacco from the year 1881. Ljubo Babić accused Medović of plagiarism, while Vera Kružić-Uchytil and Igor Zidić stood up for the Croatian painter. The first ever detailed analysis presented in the thesis confirms significant parallels in composition and style with the selected examples of Giovanni Muzzioli’s painting, as well as sets out a completely novel observation about the affinities with the Antonio Ciseri’s painting Il Martirio dei Maccabei, 1858.–1863. The analysis further brings us to the conclusion that in Medović’s Bakanal we are not dealing with the act of plagiarism, to use the words of Ljubo Babić, but rather with a legitimate reinterpretation of the existing models transformed through Medović’s specific semantics that imbues the painting with the possible meaning of social criticism. All taken into consideration, key to the interpretation and understanding of the work of Vinko Draganja and Mato Celestin Medović turn out to be the Postmacchiaioli context of Florence of the 1880s and oeuvres of the Italian authors Domenico Pesenti and Giovanni Muzzioli, whose art transforms the Macchiaioli legacy in a hybrid painting that combines modern principles of the Tuscan heritage with the narrative and historic elements in an academic manner. In addition, Medović’s Italian teacher Antonio Ciseri turns out to be far more important for his painting than it was earlier supposed. Historically the Croatian coast was strongly connected to Venice, which underwent an identity crisis of sorts after the downfall of the Republic of Venice in 1797. Following the unification of Italy in 1866, ties between Venice and the other Italian cities became ever stronger and through these contacts Venetian artists worked with new experiences, modifying them through the filter of the Venetian specific tradition creating a particular and characteristic synthesis. Almost simultaneously, Josip Lalić and Emanuel Vidović set off to Venice for artistic training. They spent the second half of the 1880s and the first half of the 1890s there, and Vidović would revisit the city on a lagoon continuously throughout his life. Both painters were formed there through the initial cityscape and landscape painting of the combined Venetian and Macchiaioli inspiration. Soon they left for a short sojourn in Milan, from where Lalić departed for Paris and Vidović returned to Venice of his destiny. Early phase of Emanuel Vidović's painting depicting cityscapes of Venice and Chioggia is characterised by the Macchiaioli inspiration transformed by Venetian tradition. Rather poorly documented biography and curriculum vitae, which has been reconstructed with the help of archival materials and literature for purposes of this research, limit our understanding of the oeuvre of Josip Lalić. Our interpretation of the latter is based on the examples of paintings from Croatian and Italian collections. In the Roman museums Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma and Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma fourteen paintigs by Josip Lalić (with the additional three that were destroyed presumably due to a Second World War bombing) were discovered during the course of this research and were subsequently presented to the Croatian community of art historians. The analysis has shown that the early painting by Josip Lalić, it would seem, could be compared to Emanuel Vidović’s early works. In both cases we are dealing with small formats of realist landscapes and citiscapes and, with Lalić especially, genre scenes from the everyday life in the city. They were painted in the combined Venetian and Macchiaioli tradition of free pennellata and sketchy approach often depicting Venetian canals (especially in Vidović). Basic Venetian connections with their painting are found in the work of Ippolito Caffi and contemporaries Bartolomeo Bezzi, Pietro Fragiacomo and especially Guglielmo Ciardi, and in the case of Josip Lalić also Alessandro Milesi. Often propounded as Vidović’s Venetian model, the painter Giacomo Favretto does not turn out to be the key connection of reference in interpreting Vidović’s early painting. The painting of Ante Katunarić, who frequented the Academy in Rome during the period from 1892 till 1896, was formed through contacts with Emanuel Vidović during their joint year long stay in Chioggia in 1897. Virgil Meneghello-Dinčić is also mentioned in the context of these artistic sojourns in Venice and Chioggia together with Vidović and Katunarić. His painting of this period is however completely lost and for this reason was not presented in this chapter. As far as Ante Katunarić is concerned, his painting of the period is formed in relation to Emanuel Vidović, but the dispersion of the artist’s interests resulted in a significantly lower artistic quality of his work. Just as with Emanuel Vidović and Josip Lalić, here too we are dealing with the basic Venetian inspiration, Guglielmo Ciardi above all, combined with that of the Tuscan legacy of Macchiaioli. In Katunarić’s work however more pronounced influences of French painting can be felt, which should be understood in the context of Postmacchiaioli atmosphere that synthesised the Macchiaioli and French Impressionists legacy. Also, one should not lose sight of the fact that Macchiaioli themselves nurtured contacts with the French, and connections to the French art could be felt in Venetian and broader Italian art of the period in general. In the context of this research the Rijeka area should, due to its specific historical circumstances, be viewed so as to acknowledge its characteristic position. The following painters from the period of the turn of the 20th century have been sorted out: Giovanni Fumi, Giulio Lehmann, Franjo Pavačić and Carlo Ostrogovich. Here analysed segment of the painting of Giovanni Fumi, a Venetian by birth, witness to the artist's affiliation to the Venetian frame of reference, with its typical inclination towards traditional, academic patterns in religious or mundane orders for staged, studio compositions. In keeping with the general tradition of the 19th century, his approach to the painting of plein- air studies of landscapes and also portraits reveal more freedom in pennellata and sketchy treatment, while studying reality directly. The latter serves only as an additional argument to define Giovanni Fumi's painting as part of the official current in the late 19th century painting, since we are dealing here once again with the traditional, academic practice of plein-air lessons, established in the southern Italian ambiance during the era of classicism. In the research of the Giulio Lehmann's painting so far, connections to the painting of Guglielmo Ciardi and Pietro Fragiacomo have been pointed out, along with the favourite motifs of the artist: lagoon, marinas and ports with fishermen's boats, bragozzi and war ships, aswell as Rijeka cityscapes. Indeed, the silhouette of sailing boats depicted on the sea surface with mountains, sky and hazy clouds in the background, as well as the Lehmann's practice of using red accents on otherwise dark tonalities of the painting, could be partly linked to Venetian compositions. Nevertheless, clear and precise connections of Giulio Lehmann's painting to the Venetian, or actually any other context are hard to prove, since we are dealing here with a peculiar, idyiosincratic, highly individual artistic expression. In the conclusion it should be noted that although Lehmann's oeuvre follows the well known path at the turn of the 20th century that proceeds from landscape studies towards complete, studio works, his painting resists categorising due to the artist's strong singularity of character. The painting style of Franjo Pavačić, who spent the period of the 1880s and 1890s in Italy, is characterised by the academic manner of the painterly traditions of the late 19th and early 20th century, especially the one of Italian provenance, as shown by the examples of historic and religious large scale, representative compositions of Caeci vident, Vestalinke or Sv. Jelena križarica, 1892. Following the conventions of date, Pavačić combined Christian and Antique inspiration with the exotic stage props that echo Oriental atmosphere (Caeci vident) on academic, large scale formats. Interesting and typical of the period are also hybrid, academic variants of the studio pseudo plein-air colour, light and movement study on the paintings dating at the end of the 19th century: Kočija na žalu i Interijer rimske crkve. Additional argument for positioning Pavačić in the realm of the academic painterly tradition is presented by his practice of painting free, plein-air landscape and genre studies on small formats, depicting mainly southern Italian motifs, such as Pergola kod Caprija, from the end of the 19th century, following the well established European academic practice since the age of classicism. Carlo Ostrogovich was a self-taught painter, who polished his skill through copying Italian painters, such as in this research detected instance of copying a painting by Luigi Nono. Ostrogovich often depicted cityscapes of Venice and Chioggia, alongside his hometownn of Rijeka and occasionaly Milan. He also painted genre scenes, and especially interesting are his depictions of processions as parts of the Christian ritual, a theme close to the Italian tradition. In his oeuvre, marked by the absence of precise datations, a path of formation typical of the Italy at the turn of the 20th century which proceeds from the realist painting of the Macchiaioli inspiration and Postmacchiaioli compositions towards symbolist expression is clearly delineated. A fine example of the macchia technique is found in Doprsje starca s kačketom, 1914, while connection to the Venetian Guglielmo Ciardi can be seen in numerous cityscapes and marinas with typical silhouettes of sailboats. All the above mentioned leads to a possible understanding of Carlo Ostrogovich as Rijeka’s Emanuel Vidović of sorts. This argument is further strengthened by Ostrogovich’s inclination towards painting of almost abstract, symbolist interiors of the Trsat church, as well as his final dedication to depicting his native Rijeka coastal area (Ostrogovich’s characteristic ‘portraits’ of the Rijeka harbour), as paralleled by Vidović’s interiors of Split and Trogir churches and Split marinas. At the same time, Ostrogovich’s stlylistic belatedness should be understood in terms of the amateur nature of his artistic practice. The ensuing phase of European painting was marked by manifestations of symbolist expression. Connections of Croatian authors to the Italian symbolism is viewed within three separate sections: artistic circle around Emanuel Vidović, indirect assimilation of Lombard divisionism through the ‘filter’ of cental Europe, and finally contacts of Croatian painters with the symbolism of the Roman area. Within this complex phenomenon particularly important was Lombard divisionism as a characteristic Italian variant of postimpressionism with the symbolist subtext. Symbolist painting of Emanuel Vidović is interpreted through the comparison with that of Giovanni Segantini and Mario de Maria, the painter that was part of the specific Venetian symbolist context. Segantini’s name is often mentioned when discussing the painting of Emanuel Vidović. However, up to now no thorough comparative analysis of the two oeuvres was offered. This research presents, for the first time, a detailed explanation and comparison between the formation paths of the two painters, starting with their Macchiaioli inspired and Venetian motif realist studies towards the development of the two distinctive symbolist expressions. The analysis shows that the Segantini lesson served Vidović as a catalyst of his own artistic maturation. Contrary to the previous predominant viewpoint, Milan thus comes to be viewed as a turning point for Vidović’s art. Probably inspired by the atmosphere of the Lombard (Segantini’s) divisionism (next to whom Vidović even exhibited while in Milan) as a specific Italian form of symbolism, Vidović opened up towards his characteristic exploration of the symbolist landscape. Seen in this way, Milan becomes a crucial reference point in Vidović’s career as a painter, far from the insignificant, intermediate stop as it was presumed so far. The first time ever comparative analysis of the selected works by Emanuel Vidović and Giovanni Segantini has shown the possibility of the plausible, informed and evidence-based comparison between the formative, Macchiaioli episode of Venetian motifs between the two artists (to compare: Giovanni Segantini, Il naviglio a ponte San Marco, 1880 and Emanuel Vidović, Chioggia, 1898). Moreover, Vidović’s diptych Mali svijet from the year 1904 is shown to be modelled on Segantini’s triptych Trittico dell'Engadina (Trittico della vita/Trittico della Natura), 1897–99, following the similarity in the painterly treatment, as well as the technique of painting with wavy, brightly coloured lines that create a specifically vibrant surface of the painting, the for Vidović unusual choice of the intensive, golden, day light and the motif of the mountain, in addition to the Segantini like geometricised delineation of tree branches. We are dealing here with the literal transfer of the formula in the form of the polyptych, which conceptually means the usage of the concretely painted, landscape fragments functioning as symbols. Segantini’s triptych with the symbolic representations of Life, Nature and Death, Vidović transposes and reduces tot he diptych of Life and death, that ist he beginning and the end of the man’s worldly Little World (Mali svijet), contrasted in the way of Segantini’s dialettica di oposti. The way Segantini approaches his native Alpine region as a ‘mental place‘ can also be compared to the meaning which his native Dalmatian, maritime landscape holds for Vidović himself. There is one thing however, that even in Mali svijet, announces traits of future landscape painting by Vidović, that being the absence of the human figure, as opposed to Segantini’s prominent insertion of figures into landscape settings. All the rest in the diptych Mali svijet point to the direction of the conventional usage of symbols, such as the cypress trees and graveyards as metaphors of death, in a painting in which Vidović had not yet succeded in solving the tension of the Segantini painting between the concreteness of the depicted, characteristically sunlit landscape and its symbolic meaning of the allegory. This problem remains to be solved by Vidović in his ensuing production, while the ‘programmatic’ Mali svijet’s role was that of the short-lived and transitory but crucial and intensly catalyst nature in the maturation of the concept and technique of the Vidović landscape that can be followed through the line of paintings: Iz lagune. Chioggia, c. 1906, Ribarske lađe u Chioggi, 1908–10, Stara crkva u Chioggi, 1908. In it a reduction to a certain chromatic, formal, but also conceptual minimalism can be spotted, whose final outcome is presented by the paradigmatic Angelus from the year 1906–7, and a later work of the identical painterly treatment K mrtvom gradu (Towards the dead city), 1919. This research offers a new contribution in understanding the formal and conceptual genesis of Angelus, as the crucial work by Emanuel Vidović, which completes the earlier existing references to Whistler’s canvases and Böcklin’s The Island of the Dead compositions with the notion of the maturation of Vidović’s vision through different versions of depictions of the theme of Ave Maria and the lost painting L’ora che volge il desio, whose formal and conceptual models can be traced back to Segantini’s two versions of the painting Ave Maria a trasbordo, from the years 1882 and 1886–88. Conceptually, concerning the choice of the theme charged with meaning, further analysis leads us to Jean-Françoise Millet’s Angelus 1857–59. The painting by yet another Italian divisionist, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo Il Sole nascente, 1903–04, as well as the series of landscapes by the same author that preceeded it, offers another useful parallel with the almost abstract, from the local colour emancipated landscape as a symbol of Emanuel Vidović. Another key component in the formation of Emanuel Vidović was the characteristic and specific ambiance of the city of Venice, which was of the outmost importance for the Croatian artist. The significance of the spiritual choice of Venice in the context of the art of symbolism, as a place of aristocratic and decadent tradition, suffused with mystery and a specific atmosphere of its mists, waters and labyrinth of little streets has been pointed out. The above described nature of Venice, along with the way it influenced the sensibility of an artist, has been illustraded by the example of the painter Mario de Maria and his lunar style of painting (stile lunatico) as compared to the formative path of Emanuel Vidović. In their mature phase of painting, both painters blend the Italian tradition (the unavoidable Macchiaioli inspired beginnings) with the Venetian complex singularity and the central European echoes. In this way, Vidović’s highly individual approach to symbolist landscape is set into the VenetoLombard context, with the central European inflow as it was characteristic of the area of Venice and northern Italy in general, as well as the painting of Giovanni Segantini who exhibited with the Vienna and Munich secession and was popularised in its magazines. Segantini belonged to Italy in just the same way as he belonged to Switzerland, and he was active throughout Europe, being especially popular in Germany and Austria. His paintings were described as ‘abstruse in a Germanic way’. All the above leads us to the conclusion of Emanuel Vidović’s art being a highly individual interpretation in the vein of his specific symbolism, blending together influxes from Venice, Milan and Vienna which should be regarded as complementary rather than opposed among themselves. At the end of the 19th and during the first two decades of the 20th century in Dalmatia the artistic scene was dominated by the key figure of Emanuel Vidović who was at the centre of the Split based group of modern artitsts. In keeping with the trends of the time, they painted symbolist compositions in the divisionist technique following the example set by Emanuel Vidović but much less skilfully. Their connections to Italy were formed either through direct trainig at the Italian academies or through the direct or indirect contacts with the trends in Italian art, in which the crucuial role in the transition of these influences was played by Emanuel Vidović. The symbolist oeuvres of Virgil Menghello-Dinčić, Ante Katunarić, Anđeo (Angjeo) Uvodić, Petar Betica, but also Šibenik based Zvonimir Rakamarić, who was connected to the Split circle through the collaboration on the satirical magazine Duje Balavac, should be interpreted in this context. An interesting phenomenon within the Croatian-Italian connections was an indirect assimilation of divisionism ‘filtered’ through central Europe in the function of the symbolist expression, especially popularised by the work of the famous and widely exhibited divisionist Giovanni Segantini. In his Umjetnost kod Hrvata Ljubo Babić wrote about the connections between the Italian art and the Viennese secession and the echoes of this phenomenon in Croatia through the work of Emanuel Vidović and Bela Čikoš Sesija and the circle of the artitsts around them. He differentiated between the so called Zagreb school and the Split artistic circle, initially made up of the Dalmatian artists connected to the art group Medulić. Babić pointed out their antirealism and the evident influence of the Vienna secession. According to Babić, the Zagreb and Split circles were connected through selected paintings by Bela Čikoš Sesija, and even more so through the work of Emanuel Vidović, who although exhibited with the Medulić group belonged to the completely another conceptual framework. We are dealing here with the use of the divisonist technique of linear brushstrokes on symbolist canvases as a means of creating vibrant surfaces widespread throughout Europe. The technique was popularised through the work of the Lombard divisionists, especially Giovanni Segantini and their presence on international exhibitions and in international publications, especially those of the Viennese (and Munich) secession. The artists assimilated this painterly idiom primarily through contact with Vienna. Variations of this painterly approach of the modified Lombard divisionism in the symbolist key can be traced in the segments of the oeuvres of the painters: Vlaho Bukovac, Bela Čikoš Sesija, Mirko Rački, Marko Rašica, Gabriel Jurkić, Vilim Muha and Mato Celestin Medović. It is particularly interesting to point out the ambiance of Prague in the context of the work and biography of Vlaho Bukovac. According to Maria Mimita Lamberti, Prague was a European metropolis of the rich symbolist connotations, in this sense second only to Venice. Besides using the divisionist technique of the Lombard symbolists disseminated through the central Europe, in Bukovac’s case it is important to notice also the direct resemblance of the parts of the composition and the painterly technique between the work Maternità, 1890–91 by Gaetano Previatti and Bukovac’s own Krist na odru, from the year 1906. Among all te artists in this chapter, the painting of Gabriel Jurkić is the most Segantini like, not only in using the divisionist technique, but also in adopting the theme of the sunlit mountain scenes with shepherds of his native Herzegovina as abstract allegories, working through the tension of the conjuction, contradictory in itself, of the extreme conreteness of the painted motif and the pronounced nature of its metaphorical meaning on the semantic level. Rome was a city of the strong symbolist tradition profuse with international influences. In part this was due to the large numbers of international groups and artists’ associations who were active in the Italian capital. The dannunzian national myth, strengthened by the fresh memories of Risorgimento, was especially prominent there, searching for the affirmation and inspiration for visual arts in the golden past of the renaissance period. Thereby, among other things, the pronounced inclination towards the classicising tendencies in the symbolist idiom, whose examples local painters could find in the contemporary painting of the German speeking countries and Pre-Raphaelits. The blatant example of the described phenomenon was the symbolist painting of the Roman Giulio Aristide Sartorio, which was, following the painter’s Weimar sojourn, a clear example of the symbolism of the German provenance. Alongside their primary Munich training, the above described Roman context sets up the framework for interpreting the painting of Miho Marinković and Pakoje (Paško) Vučetić. The artistic expression of both of these artists was under predominant influence of Germanic art, especially Franz von Stuck. The echos of the latter, however, could be traced in Italian art also, for example on the painting La luna torna in seno alla madre terra from the year 1903 by Mario de Maria, who spent a significant part of his life in Rome before his final transfer to Venice. These examples witness to the exceptionally complex nature of the exchange of experiences and paths of (inter)relations on the European soil. Within the third tendency in the painting of the period we can trace indications of the new movements that could be connected to the Italian cultural circles close to the avanguard expression. Selected examples of works by Croatian artists show these tendencies assimilated to various degrees. In this context Italian sojourns and segments of the oeuvres of Jerolim Miše, Marino Tartaglia, Frano Branko Angeli Radovani and Vinko Foretić have been examined. Especially significant in the context of this chapter is the painting of Marino Tartaglia, in whose oeuvre the connections to the Italian artistic milieu are the most prominent. Tartaglia spent his formative years in Croatia and Italy. After visiting la Biennale di Venezia, he set out for Florence in 1912 where he studied at the Académie Suisse led by Antonio Augusto Giacometti and later at the Istituto superiore di belle arti. Following the invitation by the art critic Mario Recchi, Tartaglia exhibited at the Mostra d'arte indipendente in the Roman gallery L’Epoca during May and June of the year 1918, being its youngest participant, the only debutant and the only foreign exhibitor. Moreover, Tartaglia was given the honour of setting up the exhibition. This famous exhibition gathered the most prominent representatives of the Italian avanguard and represented the transition from the pittura metafisica towards the ‘return to order’ of Valori plastici movement. The aforementioned trends were reflected in Tartaglia’s artistic expression as testified by the paintings with metaphysical inclinations (such as Fetiš, 1917, or Maneken, 1919), as well as in his final foundation of the art group Oblik, which was active during the period from 1926 till 1939. The key work of Tartaglia’s Italian period was his Selfportrait from the year 1917., interpreted in this thesis in relation to the international climate of Rome and the tradition of the futurist modification and reinterpretation of the divisionist colour theory, especially in regard to the painting of Umberto Boccioni. In this way, the precise connections between the famous Tartaglia’s painting and Italian art have been for the first time explained, defining the concrete points of reference. Tartaglia’s specific synthesis of the avanguard tendencies and the classical approach to painting, apart from being part of the European ‘return to order’ movement initiated in 1910 and culminating in 1920s, can also be compared to the characteristic painting of an Italian Amadeo Modigliani, a fact for the first time pointed out here. The comparison even takes on formal parallels when observing Tartaglia’s Portret slikara Mate Meneghella-Rodića, 1919. The essential characteristic of the ‘italianism’ in the art of Marino Tartaglia, as well as of the complete Split circle all the way down to the painting of Emanuel Vidović as the matter of fact, is manifested in the determinant of its mediterraneanism, inclination towards the synthesis of the figurative and abstract and the respect towards the classical tradition. Despite his Italian sojourn during his formative years, when he joined the Meštrović circle and contacted Marino Tartaglia, Jerolim Miše remained aloof from Italian artistic influences, the fact noted by numerous critics so far. Nevertheless, even in his case selected sporadic examples of connections with the Italian milieu can be detected, such as in Muškarac s crvenom kapom i pregačom and Stari Splićanin, both dating in the year 1914. The psychological tension in these paintings is created through intensive contrasting of large surfaces of complementary colours, itself being the strategy of intensifying the psychological component in the portraits of the Italian futurists, inherited through the transformations of teachings on the colour theory of the Lombard divisionists. It is the same strategy in which Marino Tartaglia’s Selfportrait from the year 1917 operates. Among other cities, Frano Branko Angeli Radovani was trained in Venice during the period from 1899 till 1901. He also sojourned in the contemporary centre of the Italian futurism Milan during the period from 1909 till 1912, and again in the year 1914. Angeli Radovani was related to the Italian avanguard movements through his live contacts with the representatives of the Italian Futurist movement in Milan, primarily through his politically left oriented worldview and active social and journalistic engagement. Moreover, Angeli Radovani exhibited with the Italians in Italy during the course of the year 1911 (Milan, Naples), in the section of Lombard art. The artist’s inclination towards the social activism is reflected in his caricature production, in which he reached the most noteworthy results. The segment of Angeli Radovani’s painterly oeuvre with which we are familiar today is subdivided into realist approach of landscapes and portraits on the one hand, and the painting characterised by the belated echoes of the Segantini like symbolism on the other, in keeping with the Meštrović nationalist paradigm (of his Roman years) of the moment. According to his own words, already during the First World War while still in Paris, Vinko Foretić was engaged in futurist caricatures. During that same period (from 1914 until 1918) Foretić sojourned in Rome and Geneva, where he created works under the influence of futurism as it has been pointed out in the existing literature on the artist. The aggravating circumstance in the research on Foretić’s painting is presented by the fact that a great deal of his works has been either scattaered all around or completely lost. Based on his production we know about, we can assume that he was much more conservative in oil painting itself than in its drawing segment. Relevant for the topic of this thesis are two drawings: Portret švicarskog kelnera and Čovjek s cigaretom (Portret jednog Slovenca), both dating in the period from 1914 to 1918, as examples of more freely done, geometricized deformation, which could be related to the experiences of cubism and futurism, but also the Modigliani characteristic elongated and curvy silhouette. Following this interpretationwe can also connect drawings by Foretić with Tartaglia’s Portret slikara Mate Menghella-Rodića from the year 1919, the difference being that Foretić went one step further in deformation of the depicted figure, while Tartaglia’s portrait is more pronouncly oriented towards the ‘return to order’ philosophy. Foretić’s inclination towards the avanguard, especially that of futurist provenance that can be seen in his drawings, is witnessed by his fellowship with Zadkin and Archipenko, as well as the exposition of his drawings on the Zenit exhibitions in Zagreb and Belgrade during the period from 1922 to 1924. The concluding year of the thesis, 1919 marked the beginning of a new phase of the parallelism between the expressionism and cézannism in Croatian painting presented at the Spring Salon exhibitions as a sign of the break with the ‘remnants’ of the Jugendstil from the previous period. It opens up a whole new chapter in Croatian art that falls outside the framework of this thesis. The impact of the Italian component in the Croatian painting at the turn of the 20th century turns out to be far more significant than it was previously presumed. Alongside the direct connections between the artists of the two neighbouring countries, especially interesting are those segments in this relationship in which the Italian component is incorporated into the body of the Croatian art in a ‘concealed’ manner. This phenomenon of a great importance is characterised by its hybrid nature that made the whole context of this research extremely complex and challenging, presenting itself as an unavoidable component in understanding and interpreting the Croatian modern art.