Konstantin Danil | Origin of Street Names

Konstantin Danil (? - 1873) was one of the most renowned Serbian portrait painters and iconographers in the 19th century. He was a skilled artist whose life and work have remained inexplicably mysterious, even to this day.

It is assumed that he was born between 1793 and 1802 in a family of Romanian Serbs in Lugoj, a town in present-day Romania, or the Habsburg Monarchy at that time. His name has never been found in the books of the Lugoj church, so the exact date, year, baptismal name, and his precise origin remain uncertain.

According to his own account, he learned painting in the studio of the renowned painter Arsenije Teodorović in Temišvar. It is known that in the early 1820s, he spent some time in Vienna and Munich, associating with local painters. However, he never received formal art education. Upon his return to Banat, he worked as a traveling painter and made a living from it.

Despite the lack of a formal painting diploma, thanks to his evident talent, Konstantin Danil gradually built his artistic reputation "on the field" by painting portraits of members of various noble families in this part of the Monarchy. Moreover, with his own style, which included a remarkable translucent glow in his portraits, he became highly esteemed, sought-after, and well-paid as a painter.

Thanks to his magnificent portraits, Konstantin Danil was invited in 1820, upon the recommendation of the Pančevo prote, to paint the iconostasis of the magnificent, yet still new, Assumption Church in Pančevo - one of the most beautiful Orthodox churches in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thus, after portraits, the phase of icon painting began in Konstantin Danil's work, reaching its peak with the painting of the iconostasis of the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Jarkovac, which still captivates with its vividness today.

By marrying a Hungarian noblewoman, Konstantin Danil permanently settled in Veliki Bečkerek, present-day Zrenjanin, where he established his own painting school. Among the numerous students of this school, one of the most famous was Đura Jakšić, who later became a great painter and poet himself.

Despite being a highly esteemed painter in society, it remains unclear how such a significant and influential artist fell into oblivion in the last years of his life, to the extent that even the newspapers did not announce his death. Buried according to the Orthodox rite in a Catholic cemetery, the resting place of Konstantin Danil was marked only by a wooden cross that decayed over time and disappeared, leaving the grave of the great painter without any marker.

A similar fate befell the painter's legacy - his portraits are mostly forgotten, lost, or have fallen into private ownership without adequate conservation methods.

This injustice, or perhaps an incredible twist of fate, was somewhat rectified in 1937 when the Catholic cemetery in Zrenjanin, then Petrovgrad, was redesigned, and a metal chest with the inscription Daniel Konstantin was unearthed, thus finding the deserted grave of the great painter. Finally, in 1950, a monument was erected to honor him.

Today, around twenty preserved portraits of Konstantin Danil can be seen in all their glory at the Gallery of the Matica Srpska in Novi Sad, as well as at the National Museums in Pančevo and Belgrade.

The name of Konstantin Danil is symbolically preserved from oblivion by several streets in cities across Serbia.