Tag: Vlaho Bukovac

Vlaho Bukovac, Woman in Ancient Costume

Vlaho Bukovac
Woman in Ancient Costume, 1919
oil on cardboard
85 x 62.1 cm
MG-312

Vlaho Bukovac (1855–1922) is considered to be among the pioneers of Modern art in Croatia. This Parisian student had an international career (France, England, USA, Vienna, the Czech Republic) and received awards at the Paris Salon, while his works are kept in private collections around the world. Bukovac’s painting style ranges from Academic Realism to the Colourful School of Zagreb period and the distinctive leaning towards Symbolism in the portraits and nudes executed in the last twenty years of his life when he worked as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Bukovac painted the Woman in Ancient Costume in Prague, where he worked as a professor at the local Academy, promoting a technique characterised by a unique divisionist brushstroke in the service of Symbolist painting. This method was developed in Lombardy, subsequently refined through the “filter” of the Central European Viennese cultural milieu, and later disseminated throughout Europe.  The divisionist, dotted brushstroke gives the painting an intentionally vibrant and flickering surface, evoking the ambiguous and undefined states of transition typical of Symbolism. The choice to depict a woman in ancient costume reflects the legacy of the nineteenth-century academic tradition, which frequently situated imagined figures and scenes from Classical Antiquity in classical interiors and realistically rendered landscapes.

Text: PhD Ivana Rončević Elezović, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Vlaho Bukovac, My Nest, 1897

Vlaho Bukovac
My Nest, 1897
oil on canvas
89x131cm
MG-3890

Vlaho Bukovac (1855 - 1922) is considered the founder of Croatian Modern art. His curious and adventurous spirit led him to America as a child. Thanks to the panslavist writer Medo Pucić and Bishop Strossmayer, he went to study at the École des beaux-arts in Paris. He initially painted under the influence of Alexandre Cabanel, an eclectic painter of historical and religious compositions in the spirit of official academism. Over time, Bukovac became acquainted with Impressionist painting and Orientalism, developing his own artistic expression by drawing on Realism, Impressionism, and occasionally Symbolism. After having completed his studies in 1880 and thanks to the successes he achieved at the Paris Salons, he set up a studio in Paris. He simultaneously painted in Dalmatia and England, and in 1893, he settled in Zagreb. He is considered one of the initiators of the construction of the Art Pavilion in 1895. In 1897, he founded the Society of Croatian Artists, which opposed Kršnjavi’s Croatian Art Society, established in 1879, inviting artists to paint en plein air and thus providing impetus to Croatian Modern art. Under his influence, painters began using a brighter palette, abandoning the brown hues that dominated galleries at the time, and creating a variant of Croatian realistic painting that became known as the Colorful School of Zagreb. Because of his disagreement with Kršnjavi, Bukovac first moved to Cavtat in 1898 and then to Prague in 1903 as a professor at the local academy.
The museum painting My Nest from 1897 is an intimistic scene of Vlaho Bukovac’s desired life with his family in Zagreb. The title itself suggests the warmth of home. The depiction of the charming family is reduced to figures placed in front of an ornamental drapery, sitting or lying on a couch with a cover. All three figures gaze directly at the painter, their father and husband, thereby closing his nest. Morphologically, Bukovac begins to dissolve the form using small, spotty brushstrokes to gradually eliminate contours through sfumato.

Text: Dajana Vlaisavljević, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023
Translated by: Robertina Tomić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2023

Vlaho Bukovac, Montenegrin Woman at a Rendezvous, 1883

Vlaho Bukovac
(1855 – 1922)
Montenegrin Woman at a Rendezvous, 1883
oil on canvas
200 x 104 cm
MG-309

Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922), is considered to be the father of Modern art in Croatia. At a young age, his inquisitive and adventurous spirit took him to America. Thanks to the pan-Slavism oriented writer Medo Pucić and Bishop Strossmayer, he attended the École des beaux-arts academy in Paris. His style of painting was influenced by Alexandre Cabanel, an eclectic painter of history paintings and religious compositions in the spirit of the official Academicism. With time, he became acquainted with impressionist painting and Orientalism, and developed his artistic expression drawing from Realism, Impressionism and occasionally Symbolism. After having completed his studies in 1880 and thanks to the successes he achieved at the Paris Salons, he set up a studio in Paris. He painted in Dalmatia and England concurrently, and in 1893 he settled in Zagreb, where in 1895 he initiated the construction of the Art Pavilion. In 1897, he founded the Society of Croatian Artists that opposes Kršnjavi’s Croatian Art Society founded in 1879, and invited artists to paint in plein air thus giving an impetus to the development of Modern art in Croatia. Under his influence, painters started using a brighter palette, rejecting the brown hues that dominated galleries at the time. As a result, a variant of Croatian realist painting with bright colours was birthed and soon became known as the Colourful School of Zagreb. Because of his disagreement with Kršnjavi, Bukovac first moved to Cavtat in 1898 and then to Prague in 1903 to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts there.

Montenegrin Woman at a Rendezvous is part of Bukovac’s Montenegrin series, and it was created under the influence of the Czech painter Jaroslav Čermák (1831 – 1878), who himself took part in the battles against the Turks in Montenegro. His painting from 1873, A Wounded Montenegrin, is also kept in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art. The composition of Bukovac’s Montenegrin Woman is reminiscent precisely of this painting by Čermák, and was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1888. It is a portrait of a young woman with a sad, even somewhat romantic melancholy gaze who came to the rendezvous alone. The skin tone is refined and differs somewhat from the serious-heavy depiction of the costume. The similarity with Čermák’s method is also reflected in the landscape features, the studies of which were created in plein air, in Fontainebleau. The painting gamut varies in a series of dark hues of the subdued studio scale, with bright accents of certain parts of the folk costume. Paintings with Montenegrin motifs are a reflection of the ubiquitous orientalism of the time which, in this case, was inspired by examples from the immediate surroundings.

Text: Dajana Vlaisavljević, Museum Advisor © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, 2022
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb 2022

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