Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, July 25, 2022: Vlaho Bukovac, a Croatian painter and academic (#1630)

Monday, July 25, 2022

Artist of the Day, July 25, 2022: Vlaho Bukovac, a Croatian painter and academic (#1630)

Vlaho Bukovac (1855 – 1922) was a Croatian painter and academic. His life and work were eclectic, for the artist pursued his career in a variety of locales and his style changed greatly over the course of that career. He is probably best known for his 1887 nude Une fleur (A Flower), which he created during his French period and which received attention in various reviews and publications during his lifetime. Bukovac was the court painter for Obrenović dynasty, Karađorđević dynasty and Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. In Zagreb, he is probably best known as the painter of the 1895 theatre curtain in the Croatian National Theatre.

Bukovac was born Biagio Faggioni in the town of Cavtat south of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia. While his mother was of Croatian descent, his paternal grandfather was an Italian sailor from the Genoa area who experienced a shipwreck near Cavtat. When he was eleven, he left with his uncle Frano for New York, where he stayed for four years before returning to his parents. Soon after, he found employment as a sailor, traveling on the Istanbul-Liverpool-Odessa route, however, his nautical career was soon cut short due to injuries sustained during a fall on the ship. While recovering at home, he began to paint. In 1873 he and his brother Jozo left for Peru, where he lived for a year selling his paintings before moving to California in 1874.

In San Francisco, he began an amateur career in painting, and received his first lessons in art from Domenico Tojetti. He painted many portraits, including multiple for the family of wealthy businessman William Dunphy, owner of the Rancho Posa de los Ositos.

In 1877, Faggioni returned to Europe to study painting, and in this time began using the surname Bukovac, a translation of the Italian word faggio meaning beech.He received his artistic education in Paris. He became a student at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris studying under the famed French artist Alexandre Cabanel. Dubrovnik-based Serb trader Petar Marić also assisted him financially, and Bukovac later painted a portrait of him and his family.

Bukovac began his career in France. He painted in a "sugary" realistic style, his fashionable paintings achieved great success at the Paris Salon. During his time in France, he often traveled to England and the Dalmatian coast, where he was born. From the mid-1880s to World War I, regularly visited England, where many of his pictures were sold by London art dealers.

Bukovac was the court painter for Obrenović dynasty and Karađorđević dynasty. For his portrait of Natalie of Serbia he was awarded Order of the Cross of Takovo. He was also awarded Order of St. Sava.

Some of his painting are a part of the collection of Museum of Fine Arts of Montenegro.

Bukovac became a significant representative of fine arts in Zagreb, Croatia from 1893–97, bringing with him the spirit of French art. These new directives are most evident in his landscapes. He then began using a palette of lively and lighter colors using liberated strokes, soft rendering and the introduction of light on the painting canvas.

In 1895, Bukovac completed one of his best known works, the theatre curtain in the Croatian National Theatre, The Reformation of Croatian Literature and Art. In his time in Zagreb, he became a leader at many important cultural and artistic events. In December 1893, Bukovac and Izidor Kršnjavi opened an exhibition titled "Croatian Salon" (Hrvatski salon), displaying the works of many of the top Croatian artists of the time. A few years later, Bukovac had his residence and atelier built on King Tomislav Square, and in 1895 he founded and became the first president of the "Croatian Society of Artists".

As president of the Croatian Society of Artists, he was among those who formerly opened the beautiful new Art Pavilion in Zagreb in December 1898. He gave a speech thanking the city council for building the pavilion on behalf of Croatian artists.

In 1903 he moved to Prague, where he was appointed associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He introduced pointillism to the Prague Academy, and earned his historical reputation as an excellent pedagogue.

Besides being an artist who followed the established canons dictated by the salon and the general public, he followed his own inner impulses of artistic creation. Liberated artistic expression, which was called Impressionism, developed in the spirit of the artists who kept gathering in modernism-oriented marginal galleries in Paris in the 1870s. He knew the spirit of academia and, on the other hand, he felt the spirit of Impressionistic freedom.

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