Robert Auer, Kraj crvenog svjetla (End of the red light), 1911, (oil on canvas, 85.3 x 150 cm) A painter Robert Auer (Zagreb, 1873 - 1952) studied in Zagreb, Vienna and Munich, where he was the only Croatian painter to take part in the exhibition of the Munich Secession (1896). He is one of the founders of the Society of Croatian Artists (1897) and the Croatian section of the Association of Yugoslav Artists "Lada" (1904). In 1898, with his wife Leopoldina Auer Schmidt, he opened a private art school in Zagreb. In 1900 he won the special recognition for art at the World Exposition in Paris. In 1905 he started working as a professor at the Zagreb School of Crafts and in 1907 he participated in the founding of the Arts and Crafts College, where he was also a professor. He continued his artistic endeavours in France, Italy and the United States (1901 - 1902). The experience of the Central European idealized secession of the late 19th century left a decisive mark on the formation of a young painter. Thus an idealized female act - as one of the central motifs of that time - became Auer's lifelong preoccupation. He also painted still-life, portraits of friends and contemporaries and allegorical compositions, often overwhelming the author's imagination with the desire to meet the expectations of his clients and his wide audience. Therefore, his opus - despite the not very affirmative evaluation of the painter and art historian, Ljubo Babić, which was, almost unreservedly, followed by the profession throughout Auer's entire life - must be seen as a reflection of the needs of one part of the civil society in Croatia at the end of the 19th and the first decades 20th century. Oil on canvas Kraj crvenog svjetla (End of the red light) - one of Auer's mature opus magnus - is a typical painter's act of extraordinary sensuality, with an idealized feminine figure with a melancholic look in an erotic pose, and an effective contrast of red light and blue background. This work presents Auer as an artist who has been permanently marked by the spirit of the time; a talented and educated painter who has early found his 'artistic mission' and has not given up on it throughout his entire creative life, resisting the call of ever-changing modernism. Ferdo Kovačević, Bura (Bora), 1910, (oil on canvas, 92.8 x 140.8) The educational path of Ferdo Kovačević (Zagreb, 1870-1927) was similar to those of other artists of his generation. After graduating from the Zagreb School of Crafts, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna (1889 - 1993), then travelled to northern Italy and lived in Florence. He was one of the founders of the Society of Croatian Artists in 1897 and the exhibitor at the celebrated Croatian Salon in 1898 at the Art Pavilion. He is also the founder and a member of the Croatian section of the Association of Yugoslav Artists "Lada" (1904). In 1905 he became a professor at the Zagreb School of Crafts and in 1917 at the Arts and Crafts College. Izidor Kršnjavi hired him as a student for decorating the palace of the Department of Theology and Education, where in the Pompeii room he painted portraits of Homer, Euripides, Sophocles and Emperor Trajan. For the National and University Library he painted vedute of Croatian cities (1912-1913). His friendship and cooperation with Vlaho Bukovac determined the painter's further artistic journey. Giving serious consideration to Bukovac's reference to the necessity of a plein air approach in Croatian painting, Kovačević decided to exclusively paint the landscape of the Croatian continent. The picturesque scenes of the rivers Sava, Korana and Orljava, and their shores and shutters at different seasons thus occupy the central place in Kovačević's opus. Thanks to his remarkable sensibility, his special interest in the play of light and shadow and the specific interpretation of colours, Kovačević's opus belongs to the most important ones in Croatian landscape painting. Bura (Bora) - often referred to as Vihor (Whirlwind) or Oluja (Storm) - is a representative work of the painter's mature period. Although it is not one of the snow-covered winter landscapes with bare willow branches, which were particularly emphasized in Kovačević's opus, all the key elements characteristic of his interpretation of the landscape can be found in this painting. The undulating water surface with the reflection of the coastal vegetation, bent branches in red and yellow autumn colours, and dark stormy sky, testify to the strength and beauty of nature, which was Kovačević's constant inspiration. Ivan Tišov, Astronom (Astronomer), 1900, (oil on canvas, 47.8 x 68.6 cm) Ivan Tišov (Viškovci near Đakovo, 1870 - Zagreb, 1928) was fascinated from childhood by frescoes in the Djakovica cathedral, which led him to continue his education at the Zagreb School of Crafts after attending a secondary school in Osijek a short time. Thanks to the scholarship provided to him by Izidor Kršnjavi, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna from 1889 to 1893, and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1894. Upon his return to Zagreb, he was appointed Professor of painting and drawing at the School of Crafts. From 1913 to 1914 he was living in Paris, honing his craft at the Académie Julian. At the beginning of the last decade of the 19th century, Kršnjavi hired him to make figural decorations in the palace of the Department of Theology and Education at the address Opatička 10, so he painted the Muses on the walls of the staircase and images with antique themes in the Pompeii room together with Belo Čikoš Sesija, Oton Iveković and Ferdo Kovačević. He also participated in the decoration of the ceiling of the palace central hall - Golden hall - where he painted the allegories of Theology, Education, Art and Science (1893-1900). He has continued to successfully handle orders of painting decorations of public spaces, among which stand out the works in the foyer of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (1904-1905) and paintings at the National and University Library (1914). He has made a rich sacral opus in churches throughout Croatia, and painted numerous portraits, nudes and landscapes, shifting between late historicism, realism and symbolism, with limited influences of the Vienna secession and Bukovac's plein air painting. Oil on canvas Astronom (Astronomer) from 1900 was a preparatory work for the allegory of Science from the ceiling of the Golden hall of the Palace at Opatička 10. While other allegories have several characters, on the allegory of Science - located on the narrow side of the vault forming a pair with the allegory of Art - Tišov has opted for a restrained image of an astronomer who is sitting next to the telescope, curiously looking toward the sky. Preparatory work almost to the minutest detail corresponds to the allegory on the vault and shows a strong tendency to the mystical symbolist synthesis, the painting quality which was not visible in his other figural decorations, and by which he best fitted into the dominant artistic achievements of the turn of the century. Petar Prelog, Ph.D., senior scientific associate at the Institute of Art History
