CROATIAN MODERN PAINTING 2007 - BRANKO ŠENOA (1879 – 1939)

Branko Šenoa (1879 – 1939) Branko Šenoa (1879 – 1939) is a remarkable painter whose activity started at the very beginning of the past century and went on without a break up to the late thirties. He appeared on the Croatian visual arts scene as a person of wide culture and an advocate of painting continuity. The generally accepted opinion about Šenoa was as of a personality who realized a consistent artistic opus without great oscillations, never showing inclinations to the radical modernism of his time. Such appraisal is mainly reduced to his painting-graphic segment of his opus, prevailingly in the panorama genre. This opus was formally-stylistically classified as idealistic realism and this is the way that Šenoa’s work has been recognized so far. In literature Šenoa is mentioned as the supporter of the circle of “multicoloured Zagreb school” that was under the influence of painters Iveković and Crnčić. His visual art legacy: paintings, drawings, graphics, scenographic sketches and projects, all point to a dynamic and creative intellectual, an institution of Croatian citizenship culture from the first half of the past century. Šenoa graduated in history of arts in 1905 and was granted his doctoral title in 1912. He was appointed conservationist of the National commission for the preservation of artistic monuments in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia (up to 1920). This post had definitely had an impact on his works and shaped his attraction to panoramas of monuments and urban views. Šenoa’s journeys were linked to the research impulse of a historian of art. His interest and dealing in scenography (starting in 1904) and his interest in literature dealing with the stage will contribute to creating his profile as a scenographer of the Croatian National Theatre and lead him to the position of its intendant (1935). In 1924 he was appointed head of the Artistic department of the Ministry of Education in Belgrade and in 1931 he was chosen to the honour of external member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. His early paintings present this author as a supporter of the plein-airist style of painting, actually as the follower of the group surrounding Vlaho Bukovac at the end of the 19th century. He was particularly preoccupied with the landscape that first got its affirmation in Croatian visual art through the works of Ferdo Kovačević, Menci Clement Crnčić, Emanuel Vidović and finally in Branko Šenoa’s work. Travelling along the rivers Sava and Drava as well as during his sojourn in Turopolje, Šenoa found inspiration in the motifs of the countryside, the rivers and villages (Savski predio, 1910). In the 1920s Šenoa exchanged the river landscapes with sea views: this is when the cycle linked to his stays in southern Dalmatia was painted, where he mostly used motifs from Korčula and Pelješac (Orebić, St.Ilija from the sea, Krk from the east). The painting part of Šenoa’s art was rounded up with the landscape cycle from Gorski Kotar that was painted at the end of the painter’s life. These are mostly works in smaller formats that Šenoa intended to exhibit as a special cycle but the idea remained unrealized. Panoramas of old Croatian cities (Zagreb, Samobor, Osijek,...) make up a special segment of his creative work. While he treats them in the plein-airist manner on some canvases, others are worked out in monochrome. Big formats are works that resulted from orders he received from the city institutions, so that even today we find the majority of these works in the representative city institutions. Though in his early phase he was engaged primarily in landscapes and panoramas, Šenoa’s interest in painting was also directed to the portrait and animalist themes, yet rather rarely (Two horses grazing, Nasta in the chaise longue). Realistically and objectively represented monuments of Croatian culture were collected by Šenoa in the cycle of watercolours and drawings in India ink that he recorded while travelling with Đuro Szabo, fixing them on paper and in this way defying their decay (Kaptol, Lobor, Mali Tabor). What cannot be avoided mentioning in the case of this most Zagreb-oriented painter is the graphic opus that can chronologically and thematically be divided into several bigger units: Old Zagreb (1914-1918), Old Osijek (1916), Old Zagreb Cathedral (1926-1935), Shipyard in Korčula (1934), Old Zagreb II (1934-1936). It is inconceivable to avoid mentioning his work as a scenographer: in 1909 he was made the first officially appointed scenographer. Up to this time there were only the so called “theatre painters” acting in the theatres. In the Institute for History of Literature, Theatre And Music some fifteen scenographic works and costume designs made by Branko Šenoa are preserved there (Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Zajc’s Nikola Šubić Zrinski, Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onyegin). The spread of disciplinary experiments but also a high cultural level of Branko Šenoa’s activity merits a complete elaboration and appropriate historic evaluation. This author has equally successfully tried his hand in painting, graphics and visual art pedagogy, history of art and conservationist activity and thus fulfilled a great role in an important epoch of Croatian culture and art.