THE ART OF MATO CELESTIN MEDOVIC

The period of artistic development spent in Italy left no deeper traces in the opus of Celestin Medovic. At any rate, he resisted – by seeking more realism and freedom of artistic creativity – the intentions of the General who wanted to turn him into a Nazarene epigone. The works produced in this period are few and very varied (oil paintings, frescoes; he even tried his hand at modelling and prints). Of far greater significance was the period spent at the Munich Academy (1888 – 1893), to which he owed the bent for composition, but also the style and the anaemic scale of neutral colours characteristic of late 19th century academic painting. However, a few very well preserved portraits (“Mother”, “Old seaman”, “Portrait of the old man”), studies of impressive old people’s heads, and some saintly images (“St. Bonaventura”), painted in this period, display the high qualities of realistic interpretation akin to Leibl’s circle, unfortunately repressed by academic teaching.

When he came to Zagreb in 1895, Bukovac’s pleinarism and his scale of bright open colours fascinated Medovic, like all other Croatian artists. Krsnjavi thought that his “sedateness and Munich training” would counterbalance Bukovac’s “temperamental and fluttering manner”. But, Medovic gradually accepted both Bukovac’s technique and his scale of colour, albeit at a somewhat slower rate than the others because he was the only artist to come to Zagreb as an already completely formed artistic personality. While Bukovac portrayed the citizens of Zagreb, Medovic engaged in religious and historical themes, and laid significant foundations for three genres in our painting.

During the “Zagreb period (1895 – 1907)” he painted the great historical composition, “The Martyrs of Srijem”, “Council in Split” and “Arrival of the Croats” (closest to Bukovac’s technique) and, somewhat later, “The Betrothal of King Zvonimir” and “The Coronation of King Ladislaus” (most akin to Bukovac’s scale of colours). On these representative – decorative paintings, of skilled composition scheme, it is details that reflect most his pictorial accomplishments. Conversely, in religious art, rejecting all external lustre, he was capable, with extreme simplicity and deep contemplation, of interpreting expressive images of St. Francis. After Bukovac left Zagreb Medovic also painted portraits.

painting in Delorita monastery

While painting in Peljesac the artist changed his themes and techniques. New genres appeared in his opus – still lives (autumn fruits and the catch of the sea), seascapes, followed by the prevalence of landscapes, deficient genre in our art at the turn of century. Under the influence of Bukovac, and as the result of plain air paintings, his palette became lighter and the colours brighter, as early as the end of last century. The browns, grey and dull greens become purer and were joined by shades of the purple red of heather, by the yellow of broom’s flowers, and by a rich scale of shades of the sea’s blue. Abandoning the pedantic recording of details still present in his work at the beginning of the century, in 1905, in his extraordinary small studies from nature the artistic expressed him temperamentally. With an unusually thick impasto and impulsive brush strokes; round 1907 a new technical manner prevailed – the pointillism of minute hatched strokes in a light, variegated scale of colours, used in painting the picturesque landscapes of Peljesac. Whereas this pointillism was graphically disciplined in the “early Peljesac stage” (1908 – 1912), on canvases of large dimensions, in “later Peljesac stage” (1914 – 1918), on smaller paintings with impressionistically captured motifs, the strokes became soft diffuse particles of colours. He was one of the first to note all the beauty and value of the coastal landscapes, he fostered it is an independent branch of painting, and it markedly dominated his work ever since the beginning of the century.

Although the huge opus of the artistic reflects oscillations in expression and quality, it should be stressed that Medovic was the most versatile artist among the first generation of Croatian painters, and engaged successfully in all branches of painting. He was the leader in historical and religious painting (from the numerous intimate saintly images to the altarpieces like those at Pasman, Baska and Vrboska on the island of Hvar). In portrait painting he lags behind Vlaho Bukovac although his opus does include some artistically very significant works (“Portrait of Clotilde Guthardt”, “Portrait of middle-aged woman”, “Portrait of Archbishop Posilovic”, “Portrait of Pope Pius X”. Medovic was almost the only one, in this pioneer period; to paint still lives (little appreciated, at the time, and unnoticed by the critique) as well.

However, his most significant contribution to Croatian painting are precisely the numerous landscapes, which prevail in terms of both quality and quantity in his opus, and which blazed the trail for modern Croatian landscape painting. Unfortunately, Medovic had no direct successor, not only because of his isolation in Peljesac, when created his best work, but for objective reasons: the disintegration of Croatians “painters’ colony” in 1903 followed, in Croatian painting, by vacuum which lasted until the appearance of the Spring Salon.

from V.K. Uchytil: M.C.Medovic