The beauty of Split art during HiveFest 🇭🇷❤️

Hello, dear Hivers! 🌸

HiveFest has come to an end, but the memories will remain for a long. I am stunned by all of the hard work that organizers put into creating such a variety of events. All the conferences were held in amazing venues - the Mestrovič Gallery, Diocletian Palace, wonderful gala dinner in an elegant restaurant with a beautiful view of the Adriatic sea. All that will remain for so long, but what stays longer is the people. I already mentioned in a previous post, that what makes a HiveFest such an amazing event is people. The community. You can see people, who are not only creators, whom you read posts and enjoy but also those people behind - those who create all the complex processes to make Hive a human technology.
I am truly stunned.

HiveFest also gave me an amazing opportunity to visit many beautiful places around the city, and today, you'll visit them with me.

On Friday, as the boat was rescheduled, @hallmann and I went to see the main gallery. It was about 7 minutes from our apartment, still in the Old City. That gallery is truly a hidden gem among many places at Split.
It holds art from about the 14th century till modern times. Well, I don't particularly appreciate Christian art, especially the early years, although I adore the late Quattrocento, especially Botticelli and Fra Angelico pieces.
But Croatian art has a lot of influences from Italy - amazing workshops, the form and colors, subjects and drawing.

Guido Reni workshop, Lucretia, circa 1630

Close-ups from the Fourth Seasons, 17th century

What stunned me, was a portrait of The Divan by Vlaho Bukovac from 1905.
I love the late Art Nouveau period, as it brought an amazing, realistic detail painting, nearly sculptured, but so vivid and clean-coloured. So here's a wonderful example of that statement:

However, what left me speechless was a painting by Milijenko Stancič from 1956.

The painting is so soft with a subtle and narrow color range. The artist perfectly combined the sfumato technique with that warm-toned hue. Yet, the subject is exactly the opposite. The painting is called Death of a Child. It reminds me of another one, quite contrasted though, but very colorful by Aleksander Gierymski under the title Trumna Chlopska (The peasant coffin).
This is genuinely a masterpiece, holding tight to a viewer, touching those strings in the soul, that this feeling cannot pass so quickly.

Another thing I fell in love with Croatian art is their modernism. The colors, the vividness - it felt unique, as not to get so much in details, Croatia, or actually Yugoslavia is also under the Soviet Union influence. So comparing the subjects for instance, with Polish art, it actually looks not only different but rather cheerful , too.

I had to take a photo of that couple, we were following them for a bit at the gallery, and they're just so cute. 😍

Also, I found animalism period, too. So here are the sculptures of dogs from the 1900s by Branislav Dešković.

Here's me and @hallmann

At the museum, we also popped into some Hivers as well, so we discussed briefly our impressions.

To finish that beautiful trip, I'll present some close-ups from different paintings.

Wonderful self-portrait of Cata Dujšin-Ribar

Schiele

I hope you enjoy those highlights and a little story, too. 🌸