A new exhibition titled “From Roman House to Vlaho Bukovac Museum” will open, on Saturday, April 8th, at Vlaho Bukovac Museum in Cavtat, a picturesque town located 20 km from Dubrovnik and a hometown of one of the greatest Croatian artists. The exhibition will demonstrate development of the house built in Roman style in Cavtat, a former Greek colony that came under Roman rule in 228 BC, and its transformation to a present-day museum that houses works by Bukovac. The exhibits consists of the urban plans of the Antique cities and colonies in order to show how the urban cores were planned in the Ancient times, as well as how the private spaces, such as a house, were organized in the past times. Visitors will get an introduction and an overview of the construction methods and how they developed within a long period of time.
A special emphasis of the exhibition is put on the transformation of a house from a rounded family room to a private, closed space dedicated to the use and needs of only one family, and in the end a transformation into a public space, a museum open to local and international visitors from all over the world.
Vlaho Bukovac is a Crotian artist, born in 1855 in Cavtat, who lived in New York at a very young age and later in Paris where he was accepted at the prestigious École des Beaux Arts in the already overfull class of Alexandre Cabanel. He soon exibited at the most important international exhibitions at that time, the Paris Salon, where he was recognized as an excellent portraitist as well as landscapes and views painted in the forest of Fontainebleau, Montmartre or at home in Cavtat and the surrounding countryside.
Upon his arrival in Zagreb, he quickly made quite a reputation having become the central figure and founder of a Croatian art scene initiating artistic events and influencing a generation of young artists, participated in the creation of the foundations of Modern Art in Croatia.
