Emanuel Vidović

(Split, Croatia, 1870 – Split, Croatia, 1953)

He studied at the Academy in Venice (1887-90). After he left school, he painted in Venice, Chioggia and Milan. From 1898 he was a teacher at the high school and trade school in Split and has raised a number of painters. During this period he painted and exhibited intensly, and was also a founding member of the artistic society Medulić (1908).

Initially inspired by the tradition of Venetian painting and divisive technique of G. Segantini, he painted panoramas of the channels and the Venetian lagoon, secluded houses and church interiors, ranging from realistic impressions to romantic views. In Split, under the influence of modern, he  was preoccupied with symbolic, poetic and melancholy moods. Although the atmosphere of his oil paintings grew darker, the rare lighter and warmer painted parts of muted compositions managed to achieve intensive illuminated coloristic effects. Gradually illuminating his color palette since 1935, engaged in the intimate atmosphere of his room and studio, interiors of Split and churches in Trogir (1938-40), as well as a series of still life works with Mediterranean atmosphere, he created richer works of art.

At the end of his life, in the period of a three-year sick leave, he painted many reminiscences of Split and Trogir from his childhood, synthesizing his work. Although he destroyed many of his works, about a thousand paintings, gouaches, watercolors and drawings, a series of excellent caricatures among them were saved.