🔗 5 | 2 | Gramatika: Uporaba genitiva

Genitive case: The feeling (of)

When you want to talk about how a painting makes you feel — like sadness, happiness, or peace — Croatian has two ways to express that. The verb we use is izazivati, which means to evoke, to cause, or to provoke.

The first way is very direct. You just use the verb izazivati followed by the feeling in the accusative case. For example:

The second option adds the word osjećaj (a feeling), followed by the emotion in the genitive case. It’s basically like saying “a feeling of…”:

You’ll hear both versions in everyday speech, in museums, or see it in writing, so it’s great to recognize and be able to use both!

5.2 Zadatak 1: Što slika izaziva?

Look at the following set of paintings and choose the most appropriate feeling that a painting evokes (listed below). Choose a logical word from the given examples. Be careful what case you need to use. This is your personal opinion.

• strah, sanjarenje, tuga, bol, mir, intimnost, ljubav, strast, elegancija, sreća, veselje

The ownership

When we want to indicate possession or authorship, we can use two different forms: the possessive adjective or the possessive Genitive. Both forms convey the same meaning, but they are used with different sentence structures. See the examples below.

These sentences express ownership, as art is considered to “belong” to the artist.

To help you understand, you can compare these two structures to English examples.

• When you say Picasso’s painting or Frida’s painting, the equivalent in Croatian would be Picassova slika / Fridina slika.
• On the other hand, when you say The painting of/by Picasso or The painting of/by Frida, the equivalent in Croatian would be Slika Picassa / Slika Fride.

Example: Claude Monet

Example: Frida Kahlo

Have in mind – while in English we would give preference to the structure such as Frida’s painting, in Croatian both versions are possible and used.

You already know the rules on how to form possessive adjectives. However, here is a quick overview.

Possessive Genitive

In Croatian, we often use the genitive case to show possession — to say that something belongs to someone. This is called the possessive genitive. You’ve already seen this structure when talking about paintings and their artists:

• Slika Fride Kahlo → Frida Kahlo’s painting
• Slika Gustava Klimta → Gustav Klimt’s painting

In both examples, we’re saying that the painting was created by that person — it belongs to them in an artistic sense. The artist’s name changes form because it goes into the genitive case.

✏️ A few more examples:

• Izložba Vincenta van Gogha → An exhibition of Vincent van Gogh
• Stil Pabla Picassa → Picasso’s style
• Skulptura Ivana Meštrovića → The sculpture of Ivan Meštrović

5.2 Zadatak 2: Čija je ovo slika?

Answer the question who painted these paintings. Be careful what case you need to use in this situation. You need to use both first and last name. The task also tests your knowledge on painters and some of the most painting. If you are not sure what the answer is, go back to vocabulary practice and check the task about painters. You will need to use the following painters:

• Frida Kahlo, Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch, Johannes Vermeer, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh