Abstract: The oval cartouches surrounding a luxurious chandelier in the auditorium of the Croatian National Theatre "Ivan pl. Zajc" in Rijeka, along with three paintings by the famous artist Gustav Klimt, contain three made by the Austrian painter Franz Matsch. The current scholarly literature mentions them as the allegories of Love, Dance, and Operetta. The allegorical painting called Love shows a couple of lovers in a landscape of sumptuous vegetation, with a background view to the deep sea opening to the right. To the left, there is a winged Eros or Amor playing the lute with his back turned to the observer, while his attributes, the bow and the pouch with arrows, lie at his side, on the turquoise-coloured drapery he is sitting on. The blond boy and the young woman are depicted as pale-skinned while the man's complexion is outspokenly dark, a cliche that Matsch and Klimt often used in their early paintings. A garland of white roses crosses the wings of the depicted characters horizontally, and the whole scene abounds in flowery details. In the centre along the bottom edge, the author signed his name in red letters against the black background: fr. Matsch. Unlike Klimt's painting in the same area, which is considered to be an allegory of poetry, and depicts the mythical singer Orpheus with Eurydice at the moment when a small boy offers him a laurel wreath in a setting of ancient architecture and decoration, Matsch? scene is outspokenly bucolic, set in an open space with lush vegetation. The protagonists of Klimt? painting do not openly show the feeling of interconnectedness; instead, they are both focused on the dark-haired boy, shown from the back, whom Eurydice is embracing while Orpheus stretches his right hand towards him, holding the lyre in his left as the symbol of poetry and the art of music. Unlike them, Matsch? figures hold each other in embrace, and their rather ecstatic expression with lowered eyelids leaves an impression of strong mutual affection. The depicted motif may be interpreted as an Allegory of Love Poetry, a subgenre with regard to Klimt? Allegory of Poetry. Compared with Klimt? painting, Matsch? depiction is cliched and reduced to an attractive composition that is not too presumptuous. The title common in scholarly literature ·Love ·does not imply an allegoric painting linked to the art of theatre and (or) music, which was the given theme of the commission, and may therefore be considered inadequate. Matsch? allegorical representation of dance is set into an ambience of manifestly ancient architecture. In the front, the sitting figure of a black man holds a fan made of ostrich feathers, pointing at the spectators to the right, seen from the back. There is a female figure embracing a man in blue toga to her left and turning towards him with an inquisitive look, while the eyes of the black man are directed at both of them. In the middle plane, there are five female figures linked in a dance circle. Their white draperies, the chtions, have slipped down from their shoulders revealing their backs and breasts, while their facial expression tells of their abandonment to the pleasures of dance. The five dancers represent five different types of women, individualized by means of hair colour and hairstyle. Their different bodily postures and flowing draperies show the liveliness of their dance movements. Details of architecture can be discerned in the background, such as a fluted column with a Corinthian capital and an architrave surrounded by greenery. Details of this illuminated architecture, such as fluted columns, a cassette arch, or a relief wall, are in contrast with the darker foreground, in which the figures are depicted on ochrecoloured, ornamented tiles and fabric. Reminiscences to the classical Antiquity are evident not only in the depicted architecture, but also in numerous other details, especially the representation of hairstyles and clothing. The scene is also richly decorated with flower garlands, which is a typically Makartean motif, well known from his paintings. The artist? signature is visible in the lower left section: fr. Matsch. / 1885. It is undoubtedly an Allegory of Dance as one of the main genres of theatrical performance. Matsch? third painting in the cycle of six paintings surrounding the central chandelier in Rijeka? theatre is special in that the depicted scene is not set in classical Antiquity, but a reminiscence of the Renaissance era. According to the scholarly literature, it is an allegory of the operetta, which shows a midget turned with his back to the observer, performing (singing or reciting) before two young ladies. There are two known studies made by Matsch for this composition, which elaborate on the posture of the young lady leaning against the wall or a bench, and the rich draping of her dress. The central figure is a young, dark-haired woman in a richly adorned dress, approached by a blond girl dressed in turquoise, depicted in half-profile from the back, who studies the midget with an inquisitive look. In the background to the left, the scene is observed by a man of dark complexion, holding a bowl with fruit. The figure of the balding midget with vivid gestures, clad in purple velvet, reminds of the figures in Velasquez? paintings, but the entire scene can also be interpreted as an allegory of the comic opera (opera buffa). The signature ·fr. Matsch. ·is visible on the base of the stone bench in the lower left section of the painting. The scene is probably set in a theatre, in which the heavy draped curtains partly conceal the stage in which it is taking place. The cheerful sight with the little person indicates a representation of a comic or operetta-type content. Even though produced as a ?oint artwork·for decorating a theatre and therefore stylistically coordinated, the Rijeka paintings reveal quite a difference between the parts produced by Gustav Klimt and Franz Matsch, respectively. Whereas Klimt composes his paintings along a powerful diagonal axis created by means of one particular figure, such as an angel with a lute, a warrior, or Eurydice, Matsch? paintings are composed as a circle, observing the given frame and with frontally positioned figures in mannerist postures. Whereas Klimt hints at perspective by means of architectural details, Matsch composes several parallel layers, which deepen the perspective in the painting. Matsch? paintings are more outspokenly sentimental, his female figures have large eyes with mild expression, soft facial features, and pale complexion; Klimt? women have a piercing look and rather dramatic gestures. Matsch? women are blond, with idealized features; Klimt? seem like portraits, and they mostly have pale skin and dark hair. Both painters, nevertheless, deploy a typical contrast between exceptionally pale female complexion and the dark incarnation of male figures. Following the artistic evolution of the three painters from their early historicist decorations to the more liberal and masterful, complex compositions of theatre curtains, in which all three have left their signatures in individual figures and details, it can be said that the pinnacle of their mastery in large-format painting with demanding compositions was their commission for Burgtheater in Vienna, which was both the crown and the end of their joint collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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