The outstanding painters of Serbian national Romanticism were Katarina Ivanović (1811–1882), Đura Jakšić (1832–1878) and Stevan Todorović (1832–1925). Besides portraits of important  historical and public personalities (Sima Milutionović or the composer Kornelije Stanković, by Ivanović; Marko Kraljević, by Kašić) there were historical scenes: Ivanović’s The taking of Belgrade in 1806, The oath of King Matias, The Serbian Queen Jelena, and Jakšić’s The Takovo Rebels and The death of Karađorđe. Such themes (later also depicted by Paja Jovanović, 1859–1957)   fixed the iconography of the nation’s history, its ideals and ideas: deeply historicist and heroic, and   rendered in the style of Academic Romanticism.

During his studies of engravings at the Academy in Vienna, Anastas Jovanović (1817–1899) mastered lithography and photography, allowing him to become the master of the applied arts in Serbia. His photographic collection contains scenes from everyday life as well as the portraits of prominent Serbians, notably the royal family (to whom  he maintained close ties, as the official photographer of Mihailo Obrenović and master of protocol of the Court).

At the turn of the century cinematography came to Serbia. In 1896, only six months after the premiere in Paris, Belgrade audiences saw the first projection. Eight years later, “The coronation of King Peter I” (Krunisanje kralja Petra I, 1904), the first Serbian documentary film (albeit the production of two Englishmen) defined the medium’s close association with  local royalties,  court events and the exotic imaginary of the Balkans, combining as it did scenes from the procession in Belgrade with images of the central ceremony in the monastery of Žiča and the additional insertion of travelogue footage from the south of Serbia and Kosovo.

The first dramatic feature film, “The life and deeds of the immortal Duke Karađorđe” (Život i delo besmrtnog vožda Karađorđa, 1911), produced by Svetozar Botorić (1857–1916) and directed by Čiča Ilija Stanojević (1859–1930), followed the same pattern. Its screenplay drew on a theatre play by Jovan Hadžić, on the oral-epic poem “The beginning of the rebellion against Dahias” (Početak bune protiv dahija, written down by Vuk Karadžić from Filip Višnjić’s oral recitation) and on Karađorđe’s biography, in order to rouse national passion on the eve of the Balkan Wars. It marked the beginning of a wave of national historical epics, which culminated in the 1930s with films such as “Through tempest and flame”  (Kroz buru i oganj, Milutin Ignjačević, 1930), “At the gate of the Orient” (Na kapiji Orijenta, Milutin Ignjačević, 1932) and “With faith in God” (S verom u Boga, Mihajlo Al. Popović, 1932). In 2004, the only surviving copy of “The life and deeds of Karađorđe”, found in the Austrian Film Archive, was the centrepiece of the bicentenary celebration of Serbian statehood.