Osječki zbornik, Vol. Vol. 29 No. xx, 2009.
Original scientific paper
Ivan Tišov, Vinko Rauscher and the iconostasis of the church of st. Nicholas in Pačetin Slavonia
Dragan Damjanović
; Department of Art History Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The iconostasis of the orthodox parish church of St.
Nicholas in Pačetina near Vukovar counts among the most
recent high quality accomplishments deriving from the endeavour
of the Department for religious affairs and education
of the Croatian national government to introduce higher
quality in furnishing sacral premises of both Orthodox and
Catholic church in Croatia.
It was painted from 1909 to 1910 by Ivan Tišov, one
of the most important Croatian painters of the late 19th and
early 20th century and has been unknown since then; the
architectural frame was designed by Vinko Rauscher, an
exceptionally significant Croatian architect of that time,
who was employed then at the Building Section of the Interior
Department of the Croatian National government.
The style of the architectural frame of the iconostasis is
the one used by the end of the 19th and beginning of the
20th centuries while setting up projects of architecture and
interior design of orthodox churches in Croatia, denoted as
neo-Byzantine although majority of designed elements are
basically of classicist origin.
The author of the icons, Ivan Tišov, was educated in
Crafts-schools in Zagreb and Vienna and at the Academy in
Munich thanks to the efforts of the first Croatian art historian
Iso Kršnjavi specialised in decorative and sacral painting.
He was appreciated by Greek-catholic and Orthodox
church in Croatia and was given a chance to paint a number
of icons at iconostasis. By the end of the 19th and early
20th centuries he was entrusted with several extensive orders
for iconostasis in greek-catholic cathedral in Križevci
(1895-1897) and in orthodox churches in Bjelovar (with
Čikoš and Medović, 1901-1902), Požega (partially, around
1900), Korenica in Lika (1901), Grammar school chapel
in Zagreb (today placed in Bolfan in Podravina), and a big
iconostasis of the cathedral of the Introduction of the Most
Holy Virgin in Plaško (1904-1907), his greatest and most
important work in the field of sacral painting of this kind.
Iconostasis in Pačetina was painted at the very end of his
opus so that the icons comprise the repeated composition
of his earlier work. Icons are divided into three rows. The
lower low includes the so called throne icons mostly of individual
saints. The central door of the iconostasis, the imperial
gate depicts Annunciation. Sidewise to the gate there
are throne icons of Christ and the Holy Virgin with Christ
in her arms and to their sides, on the side gates the icons of
St. Stephen and archangel Michael. Side ends of the lower
row of iconostasis depict St. John the Baptist and saint-patron
of the church St. Nicholas.
The second row at the iconostasis includes icons of
great festivities: two big arch icons to each side depict
Christ’s Birth and Baptizing (to the left), Christ’s Resurrection
and Whitsuntide (to the right). The central part of the
iconostasis above the imperial gate is the icon of the Last
Supper. On the very top of the iconostasis there is a large
icon of the Holy Trinity with side images of the Holy
Virgin and Saint John Evangelist making the fragments of
the Deizis. Christ’s Crucifixion with icons on the top of the
iconostasis have not been depicted in the church in Pačetina.
Since the construction of the church is low there was
practically not enough space for Crucifixion, hence on the
top of the iconostasis of the Holy Trinity there is only a
simple gilded cross.
In his effort to approximate to the Byzantine style, Tišov
gilded the background of almost all of his icons, he painted
gilded flat aureoles to the images of saints. Composition
of his paintings, the way of volume painting, reference
to colour and line fully relied on West-European academic
painting traditions. Some icons are noted for Secession elements,
the most obvious being the image of the Holy Virgin
on the top of the iconostasis.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
95614
URI
Publication date:
20.5.2010.
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