In The Conquest of Belgrade, how is the Legacy discussed?
According to the art historian Ljubica D. Popovich, The Conquest of Belgrade is the only known historical composition from the second phase of Ivanović's career, which lasted from 1842 to 1847. The painting was not well received by art critics in the Serbian capital. "It was compositionally and spatially poorly conceived," writes Popovich, "but coloristically quite exciting, in cinnabar, umbre and ocher tones." The art historian Žarko Domljan states that the painting is typical of this phase in Ivanović's career, which saw a substantial decline in the quality of her scene paintings. Dissatisfaction with the way her works were received in the Serbian capital prompted Ivanović to leave Serbia.Lilien Filipovitch-Robinson, another art historian, compares the work's Romantic presentation to Théodore Géricault's depiction of contemporary shipwreck survivors in The Raft of the Medusa (1818–1819) inasmuch as neither is a reliable documentary piece. This, she asserts, is typical of contemporary Serbian painters who did not have a long Romantic tradition and therefore borrowed elements from other artists, especially those from France. Filipovitch-Robinson further describes the painting as "highly theatrical, emotional and stridently Romantic." "In its complexity, deliberate confusion, slashing diagonals, tenebrism and intense colouration," she writes, "it most resembles the paintings of her French Romantic predecessors Géricault and Antoine-Jean Gros, as well as the more contemporary Eugène Delacroix."Ivanović painted very little in her final years, and is said to have been largely forgotten in Serbia by the 1870s. In June 1876, she became an honorary member of the Serbian Learned Society, which was later to become the Serbian Royal Academy and eventually the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She died in Székesfehérvár in September 1882.
Théodore Géricault ocher Antoine-Jean Gros Belgrade tenebrism cinnabar Eugène Delacroix umbre Serb Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Székesfehérvár The Raft of the Medusa art historian