From Cavtat to the Paris Salon
He left as a boy for South America, then exhibited at the official Salon.
The house of the painter Vlaho Bukovac in the town of Cavtat south of Dubrovnik, where he was born in 1855, now a museum showing his work in the place he grew up. Bukovac is among modern Croatia's most important painters, and his life took an unusual route. He left Cavtat as a boy for South America to work, then returned and travelled to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibited repeatedly at the official Salon and gained recognition. He later worked in London, Vienna and Zagreb, and ended as a professor at the Prague academy. The house is part of the display: nineteenth-century rooms with their furniture, and on some walls murals Bukovac painted himself as a young man — early work on the walls of the family home, before he became a known painter. The collection covers his whole career: Paris work, portraits, and late paintings showing his experiments with colour and light. Practical points: entry is ticketed and hours are seasonal — check before going. Cavtat is about twenty kilometres south of Dubrovnik, reachable by bus or by boat from the harbour in summer, and the boat is the finer way.
He left as a boy for South America, then exhibited at the official Salon.
He painted his family's walls before he became known.
A boat from Dubrovnik's old harbour in summer beats the bus by a distance.
Tomislav Square, Cavtat
The town itself is quiet and, at peak times, pleasanter than Dubrovnik: a palm-lined waterfront, the Račić mausoleum on the hill by Ivan Meštrović, and a walking path around the peninsula. Many people stay in Cavtat and visit Dubrovnik by day — it is cheaper and calmer, and the boat takes about half an hour.
Because Paris was the centre of European art in the late nineteenth century, and the official Salon made or broke a painter's reputation. Artists from the periphery — Scandinavia, eastern Europe, the Balkans — went there for training and recognition and returned carrying what they had learned. Bukovac is a model of that, and his influence in Croatia came from being a bridge between the Paris scene and the local one.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
