With humble origins in the seaside town of Cavtat, Vlaho Bukovac gained renown throughout Europe, as a student in Paris, a university professor in Prague, a world traveler and a true cosmopolitan. However, he always returned to his home town until the very end of his life, when he bequeathed his family’s house and rich collection of paintings to the town of Cavtat.
The Bukovac family house is located in the historic center of Cavtat in one of the narrow streets bearing the artist’s name. At the beginning of the 19th century, the house was bought by Giuseppe Fagioni, an Italian sailor, who was first brought to Cavtat by a shipwreck, and then later became tied to the town through love and marriage. As the family grew, so did the house. To that same family of seafarers and merchants, was born Vlaho Bukovac in 1855, who would become the founder of modern Croatian painting.
Bukovac learned from the schools of life and art far from home. At the age of 11, he traveled to New York with his uncle, where for the first time he met the challenges of the New World. After returning home, following the family tradition, he studied to become a seafarer and sailed on Dubrovnik ships throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, even past Gibraltar, all the way to English ports. At the age of 17, as a gift to his father, he painted the walls of his family home. It was his first painting work, after which Cavtat learned that Vlaho was a painter, and they arrived, just like today, to see the paintings. Soon after, he and his brother went to look for luck in Peru. From Peru, he moved to San Francisco, a city with an already developed art scene and an abundance of wealthy of art patrons. He took his first painting lessons and began to make portraits from photographs. Praise from critics and ever more frequent orders were the impetus for his final decision to return to Europe in 1876 to study painting.
He presented himself in Dubrovnik with his painting Sultanija (Sultaness), created in San Francisco, featuring an oriental motif inspired by a visit to Constantinople. The potential of the young artist was immediately recognized. Croatian intellectual society supported him in the decision to become a painter, with great expectations that he would be the first domestic artist to enjoy European fame. He met and even surpassed this expectation by joining the Parisian École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied in the class of Professor Alexandre Cabanel from 1877 to 1880. He lived and worked in Paris, then the capital of the art world, for 16 years, taking part in the Paris Salon year in and year out with representative figurative compositions. Almost every year he spent the summer in his homeland, bringing Dalmatian cities the spirit of new European art and stimulating social and cultural life. He made portraits in Balkan courts and high society, and occasionally he spent time in the north of England where he acquired lifelong friends and patrons. Attracted by large government engagement and promises that he would become a professor in his homeland, in 1893 Bukovac came to Zagreb. He created a private space for his young family and a professional space for young colleagues of the Croatian school of modern art, gathered around their leader in what was known as “Colorful Zagreb School”.
However,, upset by numerous disappointments and unfulfilled promises, the artist left Zagreb in 1898, and Cavtat became his family home once again. On the uppermost floor of his family home he built a painting atelier, one of the first such spaces in this area. He dedicated himself completely to his family and his hometown. He mostly painted Cavtat and its surroundings, portraits of families and contemporaries, including large decorative compositions such as Karneval u Epidaurusu (Carnival in Epidaurus, 1900).
In 1902, led by the desire for new experiences and achievements, he left his homeland with his family forever. He briefly lived and exhibited in Vienna and then accepted an offer to become a professor at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. Although in a foreign land, he realized his constant desire to dedicate himself to pedagogical work with young artists. He spent almost 20 years in Prague, but from personal correspondence with his brother and old friends we know about his constant effort to keep the family home alive, for the atelier to be open to visitors who at the time already wanted to see the works of the famous Cavtat painter. He also continued to participate in the development of cultural life in Cavtat and advocated for various social issues. In 1909 he worked on the reconstruction of the Franciscan church to which he donated the composition Gospa od Cavtata (Our Lady of Cavtat), and in 1910 he painted four lunettes with depictions of the Evangelists for the Church of St. Nicholas. These works decorate the Cavtat church to this day.
Bukovac visited his home town for the last time in 1920, rediscovering everyday life and landscape scenery. Two years later, he died unexpectedly in Prague. According to his own wish, his ashes were laid in a family tomb at the local graveyard of St. Rocco, with the highest honors of the inhabitants of Dubrovnik and Cavtat and of distinguished guests.
Today, Vlaho Bukovac’s artworks are found in numerous museums and private collections, theaters, libraries, public and private buildings in Croatia and the world. Today, passing through the Bukovac House in Cavtat, which has become the painter’s museum, we can see the evidence of past times at every step. If we look at Bukovac’s works, wall paintings, furniture that he has made or painted, personal objects and family photographs, we still feel the presence of this great painter. In his “dearest nest”, as he called Cavtat, his only permanent strength and point of return, we can meet Vlaho Bukovac up close.
By: Lucija Vuković