Vjekoslav Karas: »The Grandfather and the Grandson«

U fundusu Tiflološkog muzeja u Zagrebu nalazi se slika »Slijepac i vila«, inventirana kao Karasova. Tragom ove slike dolazimo do arhiva HAZU, gdje nađeni podaci opovrgavaju mišljenje Karasovih biografa da je njegova poznata slika »Djed i unuk« ostala u Beču, kamo je bila poslana na umnožavanje, te da nikada nije vraćena u Hrvatsku. No slika je bila poklonjena Akademiji, pod nazivom »Slijepac i vila «, a prema podacima tamo se nalazila godinama. Podaci o izlasku iz Akademije nisu nađeni. Kako se istoimeno ulje na platnu, istog motiva, nekoliko godina kasnije našlo u Tiflološkom muzeju, nije poznato. Svakako je moguće da je riječ o istome djelu, o zagubljenoj, originalnoj slici Vjekoslava Karasa. U svom prilogu autorica opravdava spomenutu tezu, te smatra da je riječ o originalu, a nastoji potaknuti istraživanja koja bi u potpunosti razriješila misteriju oko slike.In 1864, after the announcement of its owner Konstantin Stojšić to the bishop Strossmayer that the picture will be donated to the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, all the traces of the best known picture of Vjekoslav Karas »The Grandfather and the Grandson« disappeared. After this announcement Stojšić sent the picture for duplication to Vienna, from where, as many different authors concluded, it has never returned. Although not in continuity, from 1891 the Typhlological Musem\u27s holdings contain the picture »The Blind and the Fairy«, oil on canvas, inventoried as Karas\u27s. The picture fits the description and is completely identical to the oleograph made in Vienna according to Karas. Researching concerning»The Blind and the Fairy«, as well as the attempt to determine the picture\u27s identity, bring us very close to the solution of the enigma about never found Karas\u27s original work »The Grandfather and the Grandson«. In the literature of the 19 century the picture is mentioned under different names. The working title that Karas assigned to the picture while making it in Rome, in 1845, was»The Fairy Inspires a Bard by Heroic Folk Songs«. Inspired by the events in his homeland and by well known ballad of Petar Preradović »The Grandfather and the Grandson«, Karas created the picture that radiated patriotism that was probably the reason why the picture deserved its place on the curtains of the Croatian National Theatre. His picture, to all appearances according to the ballad of Preradović, got in homeland the shorter name»The Grandfather and the Grandson«. Researching the origins of the picture from the Tyhlological Museum in the HAZU Archives (the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), in the registry book for the year 1865, a figure that Konstantin Stojšić donates the original picture of Vjekoslav Karas »The Blind and the Fairy« to the Academy was found. It could be assumed that art historians and other researchers that were concerned with Karas and that did not succeed in finding this trace were deceived by the name of the picture that has never been used till then. This figure by itself is not the proof that the picture physically arrived to the Academy, but it certainly is an information concerning the picture\u27s existence in the Academy\u27s property, and the information could be found in one of the Minutes of the JAZU from the joint session held in 1879. As in the fist picture catalogue of the Strossmayer\u27s Gallery from the year 1885 there were no figures about the picture, we can suppose that in the period from 1879 to 1885 the picture left the Academy and the figures, even if they exist, were not found. It is certainly very interesting that the new name »The Blind and the Fairy« under which Stojšić donated »The Grandfather and the Grandson« to the Academy, later on appears only in the Croatian Museum for the Blind, whose successor is the Typhlological Museum. The appearance of the picture in this museum can be thanked to the very motive of the picture that represents an old blind fiddler, a boy and a woman in white with the Illyrian symbols on her clothes. The biography of Karas reveals us the background of the motive used in his encumbrance with helpless, half-blind father. The appearance of»The Blind and the Fairy« in the Croatian Museum for the Blind, according to the accessible documents at latest in 1891, could be linked with the friendship of bishop Julij Drohobetski, long-standing president of the Society of the Blind »Sv. Vid« and Izidor Kršnjavi, who at that time was at the head of the Academy\u27s Strossmayer Gallery. The picture »The Blind and the Fairy« was exhibited within the Department of the Blind at the jubilant Exhibition of the Croatian-Slavonian Economic Society in 1891 in Zagreb and at the Millenium Exhibition in 1896 in Budapest and it was mentioned in the typhlological periodicals of that time. On the back of the picture, on canvas, there is a stamp: »A TRUE ZAGREB ARTISTIC CRAFT HALL OF E. F. BOTHE« which tells us that the picture was exhibited in Bothe\u27s shop in Zagreb, and in no way that it was painted on the canvas made in the furniture factory »Bothe and Ehrmann« that begun with work at the turn of the 20 century, as it is to be judged according to the last published figures on picture. All signs point to great probability that the picture »The Blind and the Fairy« from the Typhlological Musem holdings is the looked-for work of Vjekoslav Karas »The Grandfather and the Grandson«