Ars Adriatica, No. 3, 2013.
Pregledni rad
Funerary Monuments by Ivan Rendić in the Croatian Littoral
Branko Metzger Šober
orcid.org/0000-0002-0637-413X
; neovisni istraživač, Rijeka, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Ivan Rendić was born on 27 August 1849 in Imotski. He was brought up in the very poor surroundings of the quarries of Brač, and in his earliest childhood he discovered that he had a talent for sculpting and drawing. After elementary school, he continued his education in Trieste with the wood-carver Giovanni Moscoto, and then at the Academy in Venice where he received much praise as a very talented student. Having completed his studies, he trained in Florence with Giovanni Dupre, a famous master of the time. After his studies, he lived and worked at Zagreb but due to a lack of commissions and the disastrous earthquake of 9 December 1880 which ruined his Zagreb studio, he decided to move with his family to the richer city of Trieste where he could find more work. He resided and worked there on two occasions, from 1880 to 1899, and from 1902 to 1921. Ivan Rendić was the last itinerant artist who, like medieval sculptors, created his works along the way, from place to place, offering his services as a sculptor. This is how he made diverse, creative works in the cemeteries of the major towns along the Croatian coast and in the interior. And it is the very scattered nature of his works that characterizes the unique poetics which can be seen in each of his monuments. The motifs, treated lyrically and realistically so as to appear frozen in a moment of their story, are always more modelled rather than carved to fit into the architectural frames designed to accommodate them, and are treated with exquisite attention to detail, making him an exceptional artist. The dignitaries and investors of Rijeka engaged local and foreign craftsmen alike to work on the projects and buildings in which they invested, and hired the same people as designers of their resting places. Apart from architects they hired for their funerary monuments, they also approached sculptors who were passing through Rijeka like Ivan Rendić who was en route to or from Trieste. The vicinity of Trieste and the numerous contacts between it and Rijeka encouraged co-operation between Ivan Rendić and many entrepreneurs from Rijeka, beginning in 1882 with the land-owner Josip Gorup, and continuing with the Devet family in 1885, the Gelletich-Bartolich-Nicolaides family in 1886, the Ploech family in 1887, the family of Frano Pilepić in 1890, the family of Antonio Stiglich in 1891, the family of Antun Bakarčić, and the Copaitich-Battaglia and Manasteriotti families in 1892, and Marija Schalek and the widow of Tonhauser in 1896. In 1900 he made a funerary monument for Dr. Stanislav Dell’Asta-Mohović, and after that for Giovanni Fumi in 1902, for Đuro Ružić, Andrej Antić and the Haramija family in 1905, for Ivan Tomašić in 1907, the Cozulich de Pecine family in 1914, and the last one, for Ivan Smokvina in 1915.
All these funerary monuments, mausolea and funerary chapels bear their own idiosyncrasies and highlight Rendić’s inexhaustible energy and diligence, a moment in his career and his individuality. His sculptures and shapes were carefully studied. He was a skilled imitator of nature. He had an excellent feeling for details which he depicted with a learned, highly developed skill in the workmanship of the material. Unfortunately, his visual purity and expression could sometimes be lost in the over-bundant quantity and opulence of decorations and details, stemming from the desire to give more.
The state of Rendić’s monuments today witnesses that they have been forgotten and damaged. They speak to us about a forgotten artist whose works even in a state like this still attract attention with their beauty. If we were to isolate these sculptures in a space which is different to that in which they are now, I believe that in that new environment we would know how to enjoy the refinement of the workmanship of his motifs, their beauty, and realism of minutely sculpted scenes. Presently, perhaps because these funerary monuments are located where they are, they do not receive the attention of the public that they deserve. Having sunk into oblivion, and having lost their monumentality through the damage they have sustained, his monuments indicate once again that lack of human care can at times defy reason in the way it conspires with ravages of time to create the possibility that some things will perish and exist only in memory.
Ključne riječi
Ivan Rendić; funerary monuments; mausolea; local cemeteries; Kozala; Trsat; Opatija; Bakar
Hrčak ID:
112114
URI
Datum izdavanja:
13.12.2013.
Posjeta: 5.940 *