WATERCOLORS BY EDUARD LOIDOLT

When the central Ottoman rule began to weaken in the late 17th century, Europeans showed an increased interest in circumstances in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was then part of the Eyalet of Bosnia and broader Ottoman Empire. This is confirmed by published travelogues, particularly by French travelers in.[1] The travelers – writers, painters, researchers and diplomats – were interested in various motifs and contents – cities, sights, roads, schools, healthcare, population, scenery and cultural sites. A particular significance is attached to the journey of English archeologist Arthur John Evans (Nash Mills, 1851 – Youlbury, 1941) through Bosnia during the Herzegovina uprising in 1875 and his view of the circumstances, country and people.[2] For Sarajevo, Evans recorded that it is a “pearl and emerald peak of Oriental imagination”.

Precious data and impressions have been left by painters, travelers and researchers of unknown regions and worlds, particularly those where the worlds and cultures of the East and the west meet. Such Bosnia was very interesting for travelling painters such as Croatian artists Vjekoslav Karas or Ferdo Quiqueres. Most of them arrived in Bosnia with Austro-Hungarian occupying army. They included both amateurs and better painters. While participating in battles of conquering Bosnia, officer Felicien von Myrbach painted battles in Sarajevo, at Debelo Brdo, under the Sedrenik, in front of Beg Mosque, under the Gorica, at Hisete, and in front of the Magribija Mosque. Ladislav Eugen Petrović, Theodor Breidwiser and J. J. Kirchner also participated in the battles.[3] One of such painters was Eduard Loidolt, an officer who stayed in Bosnia for somewhat longer than two years. He was born in Mauerkirchenen, Upper Austria, in 1854. Upon completing the Cadet School, on 1 November1879, he was deployed to the 1st Schlesiche Infanterie-regiment in Sarajevo. He mostly stayed in Sarajevo, which he left only for engineering tasks or with other units participating in battles f Austro-Hungarian army against rebels at Rogoj, at Brod near Foča, on the Krušćica and in Badan (Herzegovina Uprising 1882).[4] Since he had the elementary art education and was impressed by the environment in Sarajevo, he began to record his impressions and motifs using the watercolor technique. By his transfer from Sarajevo to Tropau in 1882, he painted over 130 of them, in the sketchbook format. Most works are Sarajevo motifs, then motifs of people, crowd and scenes from Sarajevo streets and neighborhoods.

At the time when there were few photographs, Loidolt's watercolors present precious sights of certain parts of the city. Loidolt knew how to select motifs, parts of old Sarajevo and neighborhoods around the fortress, town gates or Mejtan in the Vratnik neighborhood, though he equally selected motifs on the opposite side of the city, at the foot of the Trebević, the square in front of the barracks or Jediler turbe. He also made some watercolors of the central and lower part of the city. Thus, in one watercolor, Loidolt painted the old stone bridge across the Koševo brook near Ali Pasha Mosque and a wooden one beside it at the level of the road, thus showing changes in shaping and building the permanent and the temporary, as well as a well-known part of the city with a completely changed urban and architectural image. In a small format though with confident drawing and a good sense of relations for the space and in the space, he also knew how to depict the panoramic veduta of the city.[5] Loidolt made watercolors which depict old Bosnian architecture, houses and their junctions on city slopes with sure and unobtrusive drawing which merged with watercolor tones. These works of his, more than figurative contents, show his abilities for artistic expression and announce his later academic education.

Watercolors which depict life of the time that was accessible to a foreigner, and particularly to an officer of the occupation army, reveal many figures in costumes of the time, playing dominoes, in the barber's shop, or dances during Ramadan festivities. In one watercolor Loidolt painted ašikovanje (courting), a characteristic motif which presents a young guy in the traditional folk costume standing under the mušebak, the protective wooden grid over the window through which a girl can see the suitor but he cannot see her but only hears her voice; a guy in the beautiful costume is accompanied and guarded by a friend who, lying and watching, smokes tobacco in a long chibouk. The second one, right around the corner, plays the saz and perhaps even sings a sevdalinka, as befits people in love.

Loidolt made a series of studies, of individual figures of different social and ethnic status, both male and female, in costumes with ornaments presented in great detail. He created studies of saddlery, ways of ploughing and life in the village on small tablets. On tablets, he also painted true collections of details of clothes and footwear with descriptions in German, the appearance of house furnishing and interiors, as well as a clay stove with small pots, its full appearance and a cross section, open and closed lantern, a coffee mill – full appearance and a cross section of the mechanism, a coffee pot on the brazier with live coals. These are beautiful paintings and details of a culture, as well as excellent ethnologic materials for various studies. Of course, they are also a gesture and effort by a foreigner to present and preserve products of human value.

[1] Mithat Šamić, Francuski putnici u Bosni i Hercegovini u XIX stoljeću 1836 – 1878. i njihovi utisci o njoj. Kulturno naslijeđe, “Veselin Masleša”, Sarajevo, 1981.

[2] A. J. Evans, Trough Bosnia and Herzegovina on Foot During the Insurection… Evans J. Arthur, Kroz Bosnu i Hercegovinu u vrijeme pobune 1875. Bibl. Kulturno naslijeđe, “Veselin Masleša”, Sarajevo, 1965; a. Giljferding, Putovanje po Hercegovini, Bosni i Staroj Srbiji, Bibl. Kulturno naslijeđe, “Veselin Masleša”, Sarajevo, 1972.

[3] Ljubica Mladenović, Građansko slikarstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini u XIX veku, Sarajevo, 1982.

[4] Ibrahim Krzović, Eduard Loidolt – akvareli iz Bosne i Hercegovine / Aquarelles from Bosnia and Herzegovina 1880-1882.Bošnjački nstitut Cirih – Bosnian Institut Zürich, Department Sarajevo, 203

[5] On 1 October 1886 Eduard Loidolt was a student of the Academy of Fine (Akademie der Bildende Kunst) in Vienna „aimed at acquiring education for a teacher of freehand drawingˮ. From 1888. on 1 September, he was a teacher of freehand drawing at the Military High School, and from 1892, 18 September, he was a teacher of freehand drawing at the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. I. Krzović, Eduard Loidolt, p. 203.