Fill a div with an image respecting aspect ratio - html

Question

Is it possible to fill a div with an image such that at least one image dimension is 100% and the other dimension is either wider or equal size as the div, whilst respecting the image's aspect ratio.
An example could use the classes wide and tall like this:
<div class="tall">
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Klaproos.jpg/266px-Klaproos.jpg"/>
</div>
<div class="wide">
<img src="https://groenevrijdag.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/klaproos2.jpg"/>
</div>
div {
width: 400px; height: 400px;
display: block;
overflow: hidden;
border-radius: 50%;
display: inline-block;
}
div.tall img { width: 100%; margin-top: -50%; }
div.wide img { height: 100%; margin-left: -50%; }
https://jsfiddle.net/7tuod6vu/
I'm looking for a pure HTML+CSS solution which works for responsive rectangular (not necessarily square) divs. For this particular reason, Javascript would be a pain as one would need to determine whether the width or height should be 100% on every resize. Server side wouldn't even be an option.
Does a pure HTML+CSS solution exist for this?
EDIT Should have been clear about this from the beginning, sorry about that :( I'm not looking for the background-image solution, since it does not allow base64-inhtml representation of images. Moreover, I think background-image's are semantically different from <img>s.

Answer 1

Consider using the CSS object-fit property.
5.5. Sizing Objects: the object-fit
property
The object-fit property specifies how the contents of a replaced
element should be fitted to the box established by its used height and
width.
Here are two of the values:
cover
The replaced content is sized to maintain its aspect ratio while
filling the element's entire content box.
contain
The replaced content is sized to maintain its aspect ratio while
fitting within the element's content box.
So, with cover the image retains its aspect ratio and covers all available space. Of course, this means that much of an image may be cropped off-screen.
With contain the aspect ratio is also maintained, but the image scales to fit within the box. This means that an image may have whitespace on the left and right, or top and bottom.
Browser Compatibility
As of this writing, object-fit is not supported by Internet Explorer. For a workaround see:
Neat trick for CSS object-fit fallback on Edge (and other browsers)
fitie - An object-fit polyfill for Internet Explorer
object-fit-images - Adds support for object-fit on IE9, IE10, IE11, Edge and other old browsers
Polyfill (mostly IE) for CSS object-fit property to fill-in/fit-in images into containers.
More information
MDN object-fit property
CSS-Tricks object-fit property
object-fit browser support # caniuse.com

Answer 2

Here is the solution without using background images and with HTML and CSS only: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/JGGObQ
(change overflow to visible in the .container1 rule to see the full pictures. The numbers in them are their original size in pixels.)
It uses position: absolute on the images, and depending on the format (two classes, as suggested by yourself) a top or left of 50% that moves the position reference into the (horizontal or vertical) center, and a transform : translate setting that moves the position reference point of the image back from that center by 50% of their own size, which results in centering:
.container1 {
position: relative;
float: left;
margin-right: 50px;
width: 400px;
height: 400px;
border-radius: 50%;
overflow: hidden;
border: 1px solid red;
}
img.landscape {
position: absolute;
width: auto;
height: 100%;
transform: translate(-50%, 0);
left: 50%;
}
img.portrait {
position: absolute;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
transform: translate(0, -50%);
top: 50%;
}
<div class="container1">
<img src="http://placehold.it/750x500/09d/fff" class="landscape">
</div>
<div class="container1">
<img src="http://placehold.it/600x900/0d9/fff" class="portrait">
</div>

Answer 3

This is not the exact solution, but it could be an implementation that you could try to make your code work. Here is an example:
As you can't predict the aspect ratio of the image here is what I would do:
HTML:
Set the div tag to 'fill':
<div class="fill"></div>
CSS:
This will place your image as the background, and stretch it to fit the div size without distortion.
.fill {
overflow: hidden;
background-size: cover;
background-position: center;
background-image:"path/to/image.jpg";
}

Answer 4

You could set the images as the div's backgrounds instead and use backkground-size:cover
https://jsfiddle.net/3x5x0v24/