🖌️🎨 Vlaho Bukovac (Croatia, real name Biagio Faggioni, Italian: Biagio Faggioni; 1855-1922)

 🖌️🎨 Vlaho Bukovac (Croatia, real name Biagio Faggioni, Italian: Biagio Faggioni; 1855-1922) is the largest Croatian artist of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, who worked in the styles of impressionism and postimpressionism, a student of Alexander Cabanel.

Vlaho showed an inclination for drawing in early childhood, but due to the poverty of his family, he could not continue his education.
At the age of 11, his uncle took the boy to the United States, where he spent four difficult years. Soon the uncle died.
In 1871, Vlaho returned to Dubrovnik and took an apprenticeship on a merchant ship that sailed on the regular Odessa-Istanbul-Liverpool line.
In 1873, he went to Latin America, where he worked as a courier at a factory in Peru. Three years later he returned to Cavtat.
He received his art education in Paris (since 1877) with funds allocated by the Croatian politician and writer Medo Pučić. He studied at the School of Fine Arts under Alexander Cabanel. He exhibited at the Paris Salon, where he was successful. During and after his studies, Vlaho Bukovac traveled a lot.
Although the artist received an education in the spirit of the academic school, he was also well acquainted with impressionism, and in his own work he came to the pointillism technique.
At the beginning of the 20th century, impressionism and pointillism were the leading trends in painting in the Western Balkan countries: in addition to Bukovac, the Slovenian impressionists and Nadežda Petrović in Serbia painted in this manner.
From 1893 to 1897, Bukovac lived in Zagreb, working mainly on landscapes. At the same time, he became a central figure in the artistic life of the city, founded an art school and participated in the organization of the Art Pavilion, one of the largest Croatian galleries and exhibition halls.
In 1893, he organized the first exhibition of Croatian art in the Academy Palace. As a result of conflicts, he was forced to return to Cavtat, where he lived from 1898 to 1902. He then moved to Prague, where in 1903 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. Bukovac's Prague period is characterized mainly by portraits. He worked in Prague until his death in 1922.
In 1994, Croatian director Bogdan Zizic made a film called "Vlaho Bukovac".

Sources: m.sohu; Pinterest.