page_title: Croatian art
section_title: The 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Croatian art / The 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: The Toast
context_page_description: Croatian art describes the visual arts in Croatia from medieval times to the present. In Early Middle Ages, Croatia was an important centre for art and architecture in south eastern Europe. There were many Croatian artists during the Medieval period, and the arts flourished during the Renaissance. Later styles in Croatia included Baroque and Rococo.
context_section_description: In Austrian countries on the beginning of the 19th century (to which Croatia belonged than) building in Classicistic Manner prevailed. In Croatia most prominent architect was Bartol Felbinger who also built City Hall in Samobor (1826) and Januševac Castle near Zagreb.
  Romantic movement in Croatia was sentimental, gentle and subtle – the real image of bourgeoisie's humble and modest virtues. In architecture, there were simple decorations made of the shallow arch like niches around windows, while the furniture was of mildly bent Biedermeier furniture, and even in dressing the cheaper materials with cheerful colors prevailed. So, it is no surprise that instead of representative portraits in Croatia miniature portraits are preferred.
  At the end of the 19th century, architect Hermann Bolle undertook one of the largest projects of European historicism – a half-kilometer-long neo-renaissance arcade with twenty domes on Zagreb cemetery Mirogoj.
  At the same time, the cities in Croatia got an important urban makeover. But for size and importance, the urban regulation of Downtown Zagreb (largely the work of Milan Lenuzzio, 1860–1880) was revolutionary. Between Zagreb's longest street – Ilica, and new railway the new geometrical city was built with large public and social buildings like neo-renaissance building of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU - learned society promoting language, culture, and science from its first conception in 1836; the juxtaposition of the words typically seen in English as "Arts and Sciences" is deliberate, F. Scmidt, 1884), neo-baroque Croatian National Theatre (HNK, H. Helmer and F. Fellner, 1895), and to that date very modern Art Pavilion (1898) with montage construction of steel and glass – Croatian "Crystal Palace", and finally the masterpiece of Art Nouveau – The National Library (Lubinski, finished in 1912). This urban plan is bounded by series of parks and parkways decorated with numerous fountains, sculptures, avenues and gardens (known as "Green Horseshoe") making Zagreb one of the first cities built according to new European art theory of "city as a work of art".
  The pseudo building that emphasizes all three visual arts is the former building of Ministry of Prayer and Education in Zagreb (H. Bolle, 1895). Along with rooms in Pompeii style and renaissance cabinet, the large neo-baroque "Golden Hall" was painted with historic compositions by Bela Čikoš-Sesija (The Baptism of Croats and Split Council), Oton Iveković (Meeting of Koloman and Croatian Nobility), Mato Celestin Medović (The Arrival of Croats), Vlaho Bukovac (Frantz Joseph in Zagreb) and decorated with reliefs by Robert Frangeš-Mihanović. "The Golden Hall" becomes a unified monument of its age, one of few in Europe.
  Realism appeared in bourgeois portraits by Vjekoslav Karas. The characters of his portraits are true expressions of their time.
  Realistic landscapes are linked to certain parts of the country – Slavonian forests by artists of Osijek school, Dubrovnik in works of Celestin Medović, and Dalmatian coast in works of Menci Klement Crnčić.
  In sculpture the hard realism (naturalism) of Ivan Rendić was replaced by art nouveau composed and moving reliefs by Robert Frangeš-Mihanović. Slava Raškaj is particularly notable for her watercolorworks.
  Vlaho Bukovac brought the spirit of impressionism from Paris, and he strongly influenced the young artists (including the authors of "Golden Hall"). Right after he painted the screen in HNK in Zagreb with the theme of Croatian Illyrian Movement, and symbolic portraits of Croatian Writers in National Library, he founded The Society of Croatian Artists (1897), the so-called "Zagreb's colorful school". With this society the Croatian Modern Art started. On the Millennium Exhibition in Budapest they were able to set aside all other artistic options in Austria-Hungary.
caption: The Toast by Vlaho Bukovac
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