Anton Karinger, Pogrebna povorka crnogorskog knjaza Danila

Abstract

U radu se analizira slika Antona Karingera iz 1862. koja prikazuje ispraćaj tijela crnogorskog kneza Danila I., ubijenog u atentatu 1860. godine, iz Kotora u Cetinje. Sadržaj slike, njezini protagonisti i njihove funkcije tumače se u kontekstu političkih odnosa Austrijskog Carstva i Crne Gore u doba Danila I. Likovna struktura slike predstavljena je kao izraz onovremenih reformi historijskog i pejzažnog slikarstva.

The Funeral Procession of Prince Danilo (oil on canvas, 105 × 120.5 cm) was painted by Anton Karinger in 1862 in Ljubljana, two years after the assassination of Danilo I Petrović Njegoš, the first modern-age secular ruler and reformer of Montenegro, whose affinities toward the West provoked criticism of the Russian government on one hand, and his military successes against the Ottoman Empire that of the Austrian rulers on the other. His assassination was a political act. Controlled by pronounced censorship, Austrian daily press stressed that his assassination was the result of a revenge, which in the eyes of the public eliminated the responsibility of Austrian rulers. The media image, constructed around Danilo I as protagonist and his assassinator Todor Kadić as antagonist of a tribal drama, was established in autumn of 1860. Although Karinger’s painting was based on such a view, it promoted the justness of a country paying respect to the assassinated ruler of a neighbouring country, but also honoured Danilo I and the people of Montenegro through an expression of supreme artistic culture. In his representation of the true event, with real protagonists and landscape and with the participation of the people in Danilo I’s funeral procession from Kotor to Cetinje, Karinger accomplished the quality of authentic, factual and characteristic, according to the demands put before historical painting of the period. The theme of the painting, its technique and monumental character all support the assumption that it was commissioned by the representatives of the state of Montenegro. After a period of frequent public display and intense media coverage, the painting was long held by Karinger’s heirs, and then by the Zikmundowsky family in Zagreb, until it passed to Amelia Capurso in Dubrovnik. In 1938 it was sold to the National Museum of Cetinje, and has been preserved there ever since.