Exhibition » Izložba | 43 V L AHO BUKOVAC AT SANU GA L L E RY Art of timeless beauty The beauty that Aristotle saw in harmony and that Vlaho Bukovac glorified through portraits, nudes and the landscape genre has been presented with a retrospective exhibition of this Dalmatian painter at Belgrade's Gallery of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts FOR DR IGOR BOROZAN, AUTHOR OF THE EXHIBITION Vlaho Bukovac – The Art of Timeless Beauty, beauty is truly timeless, despite Bukovac‘s artistic transformation and the shifting cultural climate of Europe in the period during which the painter created. “Everyone who visits the exhibition gets the impression that they‘ve entered another world in which beauty is an enduring, objective category,” explains Borozan. Thus, even the turbulent changes of styles at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, from academic realism to impressionism, didn‘t influence the refined wrinkles of the young skin of Putifar‘s wife on the canvas from 1886, nor did Great Iza, with her gorgeous curves, worry about the passage of time while posing for Vlahovac in 1882. And the boyish smile of Milo Bravačić is constantly full of harmless impudence, and the elegance of Queen Natalija Obrenović is indestructible, despite the imperatives of the actual sequence of events. Bukovac‘s 1883 Self-Portrait seems to open the door to his soul and testify to his youthful wanderings around North and South America, to his return home to Cavtat, his schooling in Paris, and even the gesture of changing his name from Biagio Faggioni to the Slavicised version of his personal identity. “Considering that Vlaho‘s mother was of Slavic origin, she undoubtedly influenced his sense of personal identity,” says Borozan, interpreting Bukovac‘s decision. A more inspired observer would be able to recognise his future achievements in that amiable face with a beard and a half-smoked cigarette. And they could almost predict his entry into the aristocratic circles of England, as well as Zagreb and Belgrade. Testifying to his Prague period is the pointillist depiction of a sleeping girl entitled Pink Dream, while Great Iza also melts in short and sharp brush strokes and flecks of gentle colouring. Bukovac was also a member of the Serbian Academic Society and the SerbianRoyal Academy. Respected and universally sought after during his life, he also remained very popular for an entire century after his death. Due to the great demand for his works, gathering together 35 pieces from museumand gallery collections for the needs of the SANU Gallery exhibition required lots of effort and negotiating skills. The effort paid off, with the exhibition having restored hope in the timeless values that the publicwill celebrate until 28th March. Velika Iza rastapa se u kratkim i oštrim potezima četkice i mrljama nežnog kolorita Great Iza melts in short and sharp brush strokes and flecks of gentle colouring
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