Fall of Stalać
Belgrade, Serbia
The National Museum
About The National Museum, Belgrade
1900
Djordje Krstic (1851, Stara Kanjiza, Serbia-1907, Belgrade, Serbia)
31-1206
Oil on canvas
255 x 185 cm
Belgrade, Serbia
Having mastered the cobbling trade and after studying theology, in 1873, the Serb Đorđe Krstić went to further his education at the Munich Art Academy thanks to a scholarship from the Knez that came after he had prepared for admission to an arts and crafts school. By 1920, there were approximately 50 Serbian students enrolled there. Though pieces from his Munich phase measure up to the best works of the time, a later painting by this historical and genre artist is better suited here. After the initial, strong influence of realism, on his return to Belgrade, in 1883, he endeavoured to present an open manner of painting, with strong and coloristic effects.
Stalać was one of the largest fortified towns in Serbia in the Middle Ages, serving simultaneously as a checkpoint on the approaches to the then capital Kruševac and to strategically important valleys. At the same time as four other forts, Stalać was burned down and laid to waste in 1413, in initial raids by the Ottoman Turks, who subsequently conquered Serbia in 1459.
This painting was commissioned by King Aleksandar Obrenović for the 1900 Paris Exposition. However, the committee rejected it before the Expo for an excessively extreme depiction of fighting. When the painting was exhibited in the National Museum in Belgrade in 1901, 1,000 visitors flocked to see it every day.
Petar Petrovic "Fall of Stalać" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;sb;5;en
Prepared by: Petar Petrovic
Copyedited by: Daniel de la VegaDaniel de la Vega
Daniel de la Vega is a copy editor based in Portland, Oregon. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2014 and has since done editing and localization work on everything from college applications to magazines to video game dialogue.
MWNF Working Number: RS 005
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