Croatian art describes the visual arts in Croatia, and art by Croatian artists from prehistoric times to the present. In Early Middle Ages, Croatia was an important centre for art and architecture in south eastern Europe. There were many Croatian artists during the Medieval period, and the arts flourished during the Renaissance. Later styles in Croatia included Baroque and Rococo.
Ancient heritage Prehistoric art
The Neolithic inhabitants of the Adriatic Coast and those on the Pannonian plain, developed their cultures within the boundaries of present-day Croatia. The Neolithic is marked by the production of ceramics and sculptures with human and animal themes presented as symbolic art. In contrast to the cave paintings of the palaeolithic age, in the more settled agricultural age, pottery became the main art form, with stylised forms and was primarily ornamental in character. Neolithic artists did not merely imitate or reproduce, but created new forms by inscribing geometrical patterns and decorations.
Starčevo culture (a Pannonian plain culture) had characteristically fine red and ochre ceramics. Istrian culture (named after the Istrian peninsula) whose characteristic stone houses (Bunja) built using only dry-stone construction (suhozid). Sopot culture and Korenovo culture (named after the towns of Sopot and Korenovo in Slavonia) with original ceramic pots decorated with flat parallel lines, curves or V-shaped cuts. Danilo culture (found on Adriatic coast and islands) was rich with fine dark ceramics decorated with engraved geometrical motifs, spirals and meanders. Out of this culture developed the Hvar culture (after the island of Hvar) that is linked with Neolithic Greek cultures. There are also Neolithic excavation sites in Ščitarjevo near Zagreb, Nakovanj on the Pelješac peninsula and elsewhere.
Copper Age
Ceramics of the Vučedol culture (named after Vučedol in eastern Slavonia) during the transitional Eneolithic period (3500-2300 BC) are of extraordinary quality with black colour, high glow and specific decorative geometrical cuts encrusted with white, red or yellow colours. The influence of metal working techniques can be seen as potters construct with sheets of clay giving distinct edges where surfaces meet and the final pot is burnished for a gleaming look.
Neolithic figurines in moulded clay were stylized versions of human (particularly female) figures, and animals. The distinctive Vučedol Dove is a pot in the shape of a bird, somewhat stylized, with impressed patterning around its body, a double-headed axe (labrys) on its neck and three legs for stability.
Bronze Age The Bronze Age Vinkovci culture (named after the city of Vinkovci) is recognizable by its bronze fibulas that replaced previous objects like bone needles and buttons.
The Bronze culture of the Illyrians, ethno-tribal groups with distinct cultures, and art forms started to emerge from the cultures of the Copper Age. These Illyrian ethno-tribal areas were found in present-day Croatia, and Bosnia and Hercegovina. From the 7th Century BC, iron replaced bronze for tools and implements, only jewellery and art objects were still made out of bronze. The Celtic Hallstatt culture which bordered the Balkan region where the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups were living influenced them, but the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups formed their regional centers slightly differently. In the northern Balkan Peninsula, the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups had the cult of the dead, as evidenced from the richness of and care for burial sites, from which burial ceremonies are deduced. These burial sites show a long tradition of cremation and burial in shallow graves. In the southern Balkan Peninsula, the Illyrian tribes buried their dead under large heaps stone, or earth tumuli (known locally as gromile). The Illyrian Japodes tribes had an affinity for decoration with heavy, oversized necklaces made with yellow, blue or white glass paste and they are known for their large ornamented bronze fibulas, spiral bracelets, diadems, and helmets made out of bronze. Small sculptures of jade made from the archaic Ionian plastic are also found in Japodian tribal areas. Numerous monumental sculptures are preserved, as well as walls of a citadel called Nezakcij near present-day Pula, one of the numerous Istrian cities from Iron Age.
Arrival of the Celts The 4th century BC saw the first Celts arrive into the Illyrian areas of the Balkans; with them they brought the technique of the pottery wheel, new styles of fibulas and different bronze and iron belts, which the local Illyrian tribes had not previously developed. The Celts also mixed with the Illyrian tribal groups in Slavonia, Istria, and Dalmatia.
Antiquity
Greek colonies Greek sailors and merchants from the Greek City States of the south of the Balkan peninsula reached almost every part of Mediterranean including the Adriatic Sea coast of present-day Croatia. Other Greeks came from Syracuse on Sicily in 390 BC to the islands of Vis (Issa), Hvar (Pharos), and Korčula (Corcyra Nigra) founding city-states amongst the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups. Trading cities were founded on the Adriatic Coast such as Tragurion (today called Trogir), Salona (today called Solin near present-day Split), Epetion (today called Stobreč).
These Greek cities were laid out geometrically and had villas, harbours, public buildings, temples and theatres. Pharos and Issa were strong Greek City States that showed their independence with their own coinage and maritime fleets. Unfortunately, besides painted pots and ceramic tanagra sculptures, there are few remaining daily living materials from this culture. Two of those are: the Croatian Apoxyomenos, and the Bronze head of goddess Artemis from the Greek City State of Issa, which dates from the 4th century BC. Another example is a stone relief of Kairos (god of joyfulness) from the Greek City-State Tragurion, which dates from the 3rd Century BC, and is associated with the famous Greek sculptor Lysippos.
But aside from the superficial contact of trade and warfare, life for the Greek colonists was isolated from the surrounding Illyrian peoples. The Hellenistic culture of the Greek enclaves existed in parallel with the late iron age culture of the wider Illyro-Celtic population. On the mainland the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups were organizing their centers. Illyrian art became influenced by Greek Art, and the Illyrian ethno-tribal groups copied the styles and methods of the Greeks. This can be seen, for example in the Daors tribe of the Neretva Delta.
Roman urbanization
In the 3rd century BC, the Romans took over the Greek colonial cities and by the 1st century BC had also subdued the Illyrians, and organized the entire coastal territory by setting up urban cities. Following the conquest, the area became a province of the Roman Empire. Numerous rustic villas, and new urban settlements (the most impressive are Verige in Brijuni, Pula and Trogir - formerly Tragurion) demonstrate high level of Roman urbanization. There were at least 30 urban cities across Istria, Liburnia and Dalmatia with Roman citizenship (civitas). The best-preserved Roman grid-pattern street layouts (decumanus/cardo) are those in Epetion (Poreč) and Jader (Zadar). The best preserved Roman monuments are in Pola (Pula); founded in the 1st century dedicated to Julius Caesar, it is full of classical Roman art such as: stonewalls, two city gates, two temples on the Forum, and remains of two theatres, as well as the Arch from the year 30 AD, and the temple of Augustus build in 2-14 AD, and finally the Fluvian Amphitheatre (so called – Arena) from the 2nd century.
By the 3rd century AD, Salona was the largest and most important city of Dalmatia, with 40,000 inhabitants. Nearby, the Emperor Diocletian, who was born in Salona, built his retirement palace (in approx 300 AD), one of the largest and most important monuments of late antique architecture. On its pathways, cellars, domes, mausoleums, arcades and courtyards can be seen numerous different art influences from the entire Empire. Some of the sculptures are: the head of a boy, girl and a woman from Salona, monumental figure of Minerva from Varaždin, the head of Hercules from Sinj, sculptures of Roman emperors from Nin and Vid near Metković, damaged sculpture of emperor in Zagreb Museum etc.
In the 4th century Salona became the centre of Christianity for the entire western Balkans. It had numerous basilicas and necropolises, and even two saints: Domnius (Duje) and Anastasius (Staš). One of the few preserved basilicas in western Europe from the time of early Byzantium is the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč from the 6th century.
The early Middle Ages brought the great migration of the Slavs and this period was perhaps a Dark Age in the cultural sense until the successful formation of the Slavic states which coexisted with Italic cities that remained on the coast, each of them were modelled like Venice.
Medieval Croatian art Early Middle Ages
In the 7th century the Croats, with other Slavs and Avars, came from Eastern Europe to the area of the former Roman provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia and Istria where they live up to the present day. The Croats were an Iron Age nomadic culture, so avoiding the urban centres they instead settled in the countryside around the Roman cities, for example on an island in the river Jadro near Roman Salona.
During the 7th and 8th centuries there was a trend of constructing smaller buildings from the material and decorative elements of ruined older Roman buildings. During the 9th century, parallel with the establishment of Croatian principalities, new architecture of pre-Romanesque characteristics emerged. It was based on numerous influences of which the Frankish and Byzantine were the strongest. Gradually those inherited influences evolved into a more original form of architecture. Altar screens and carved stone windows in those churches were decorated with the shallow interweaving ornamentation which we call Croatian interlace. In general, the appearance of interlace reliefs in a building indicates a date before 1100.
Motifs of this interlace are often of classical origin (waves, three-string interlace, pentagrams, net of rhomboids etc.), but while in Roman art it was only used as a frame, here it covers the entire surface. The sheer number and quality of these stone monuments indicates a rich masonry tradition with numerous masters and workshops on the east coast of the Adriatic. Croatian interlace was originally painted in bright colours of red, blue and yellow. Since the wall paintings that are mentioned in several literal sources (for example the portraits of the Trpimirović dynasty in the church of St. George in Putalj above Kaštel Sućurac) are not preserved, they are only type of pre-Romanesque Croatian painting.
Sometimes the interlace was replaced by Biblical figures (as in the altar screen of the Sveta Nedjelja Church in Zadar), but the figures are flattened and depicted with stylized graphic lines. From Crown Church of King Zvonimir (so-called Hollow Church in Solin) comes the altar screen with the figure of the Croatian King on the throne with Carolingian crown, a servant by his side and a bowing subject. Linear cuts representing the folds of the robes are similar to the lines on their faces, and also on those on the frame. Today the board is a part of Split cathedral baptistery.
Out of the crafted objects of the time, many reliquaries are still preserved. Believed to have magical powers of healing, they were usually shaped for the body part they contained. That is why the relic of Saint James's head in Zadar is shaped like a head; the tube part has section with stream of arcades with single saint in every one, while a dome-like cover is decorated with medallions bearing symbols of evangelist and Christ on the top.