Vlaho Bukovac
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Vlaho Bukovac (1855 - 1922) was a Croatian painter. Bukovac was born in Cavtat, the small town south of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia. He died in Prague.
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Study
Bukovac received his artistic education in Paris where he was sent by the patron Medo Pucić. His small studies and sketch es delighted his professor, the well-known Alexandre Cabanel, and Bukovac became a student at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. He painted in the spirit of embellished, "sweetened" realism and achieved great success at the Salons, at that time the place of the greatest review of works related to the arts. By following the artistic fashion of the public, he imbued it predominantly with his themes. Temporary destinations during his sojourn in France were England and the warm coast of Dalmatia. Otherwise, he was open to the world, including voyages to the Black Sea, South and North America.
Artistic power
Beside being an artist who followed the established canons dictated by the Salon and the general public, there was another Bukovac who 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 modernistic-oriented marginal galleries in the Paris of the 1870s. He knew the spirit of academism and, on the other hand, he felt the spirit of impressionistic freedom. Having accepted modern principles, Bukovac painted casual pictures, using liberated strokes of the brush, in the pointillist technique.
Zagreb
Bukovac became part of the life of fine arts in Zagreb, Croatia from 1893 to 1897, as already a complete artistic personality, bringing the spirit of French art. These new directives are most evident in his landscapes. He, however kept developing further, turning to a palette of lively and lighter colours using liberated strokes, a soft modelling and the introduction of light on the painting canvas. With the time spent in Zagreb, he became the leader of all important cultural and artistic events. He founded the Zagreb multicoloured school, and was one of those who initiated the construction of the Art Pavilion, organizer of the first real artistic exhibition in the Academy palace in 1893. Due the conflict with Isidor Kršnjavi and his great sensitivity, he withdrew to native Cavtat where he stayed in period 1898 - 1902. Upon return to Prague he was appointed associate professor at the Akademie vytvarnyh umeni in 1903.
Pedagogue
His departure for Prague resulted with complete change of personality for Bukovac. There was no more satisfaction and enthusiasm he felt in Zagreb as well a strong yearning for the home. He started to be rigid in accepting ideas and modern trends but he dedicated all of his energy working with his students like. This is the reason why the Czech history of art gives him all due acknowledgement for being an excellent pedagogue. Bukovac introduced pointillism to the Prague Academy, and was due to his influence that the very style of painting was accepted, no longer founded on contour or planes, but on a harmonious exchange of colour, light and shadow, on a direct and clean stroke. One of his students is another Croatian noted painter Mirko Rački.