Rihard Jakopič

Rihard Jakopič

Rihard Jakopič ( Cyrillic  Рихард Јакопич ; born April 12, 1869 in Krakovo , a suburb of Ljubljana ; † April 21, 1943 in Ljubljana) was a Yugoslav painter .

Life

Artistic beginnings, studied in Vienna 1887–1890

Jakopič was the son of a wealthy businessman. Even in school he was interested in art. In 1887 he enrolled at the Vienna Art Academy and studied painting with Franz Rumpler . Due to illness, he had to interrupt his studies for two years. He was only able to continue studying in Vienna in October 1889.

Studied in Munich 1890–1900

In the fall of 1890 Jakopić moved to the Academy in Munich . When the program there didn't appeal to him, he decided to continue studying with Anton Ažbe , who was "famous for his ability to breathe life into a bad act of his students with a few strokes". He was also said to have an excellent sense for illuminating light, which also includes shadows, as a realist. In addition to his pedagogical skills, he was highly regarded for his "virtuoso painting technique." So he demanded from his students "a determined, bold brushstroke."

His Slovenian colleague Ferdo Vesel studied with Jakopič under Ažbe. Both were interested in his drawing lessons and portrait painting. But they also experimented in landscape painting. Jakopič was particularly preoccupied with the problem of nighttime lighting and artificial light in motifs from Schwabing . In the decade before 1900 Jakopič stayed in Munich mainly during the winter months (1890/1891, 1892/1893 and then again in the summer semester of 1895). He spent the next two years mostly in Ljubljana. He took up his studies again with Ažbe in the winter semester of 1898/1899. At that time he met Grabar and Jawlensky, among others . A photo shows him with the two Russians and many other colleagues in Ažbe's studio.

Slovenia - Prague - Paris - Ljubljana, 1900–1943

In early 1900 he temporarily settled in Ljubljana. In 1902 he moved to Škofja Loka, in November 1906 he returned to Ljubljana. In the winter semester of 1903/1904 he studied with Professor Vojtěch Hynais in Prague . Between 1902 and 1906 he painted frequently in the area around Škofja Loka. From 1903 Jakopič painted pictures that show that he had reached a very progressive level. It was of decisive importance for his new painting that he no longer worked with the illuminating light propagated by Ažbe, which serves to illuminate the objects, but instead used the colored light in an expressionist way that seems to come from the depths of the color itself. Now, like other colleagues from the Ažbe school, he processed further French style imports. They were particularly impressed by Neo-Impressionism and the vehement handwriting of Van Gogh derived from it. His painter friends followed these models and remained committed to them for a long time. These include, among others, Bechtejeff , Burljuk , Grabar and Jawlensky.

However, their stylistic conception was very far removed from what the French had originally striven for and practiced. While the inventors of Neo-Impressionism, Seurat and Signac , did not tolerate a mixture of the color on the palette, but instead applied the pure color in dots to the canvas and thus tried to achieve that these were in accordance with the theories of the physicist Eugène Chevreul on the retina of the eye of the beholder, the successors were quite carefree with the maxims of their teachers. From their required points, they create straight, curved and meandering lines that they combine with more or less large points and patches of color.

Jakopič's paintings such as B. Before the Forest or Sunny Hill seem like harbingers of Kandinsky's abstract art in terms of non-representationalism . Jakopič placed a myriad of paint stains on the canvas as dots and ticks in overlapping layers. This gives the viewer the impression of a wild, colorful swirl of confetti, which results in an almost abstract image in which all forms seem to be dissolved.

In 1906 he spent a few days in Paris . In 1907 he founded a private painting school in Ljubljana, where he initially taught together with Matej Sternen . In 1909 he had an art pavilion built according to the plans of the architect Max Fabiani at his own expense , where he organized annual exhibitions. Between 1908 and 1914 he traveled repeatedly to Vienna, in 1918 to Prague.

In 1938 he was made a full member of the newly established Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts . In 1943 he died after a long and serious illness in his home in Ljubljana.

literature

• Tomaz Brejc: Slovenski Impresionisti eropsko slikarstvo. Ljubljana 1982.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anica Cevc, Rihard Jakopić, in exh. Cat .: Paths to Modernity and the Ažbe School in Munich. Museum Wiesbaden 1988, p. 140 f
2. ↑ Emilijan Cevc: Slovenian Impressionists and their precursors. In: exhib. Cat .: Slovenian impressionists and their predecessors from the National Gallery in Ljubljana. Oberes Belvedere, Vienna 1979, p. 38.
3. ^ Peg Weiss: Kandinsky and Munich, Encounters and Changes. In: exhib. Cat .: Kandinsky and Munich. Munich 1982, p. 37.
4. ↑ Emilijan Cevc: Slovenian Impressionists. In: exhib. Cat .: Slovenian impressionists from the National Gallery in Ljubljana. Institute for Foreign Relations, Stuttgart 1984, p. 9.
5. ↑ Anica Cevc, Rihard Jakopić, in exh. Cat .: Paths to Modernity and the Ažbe School in Munich. Museum Wiesbaden 1988, p. 140 f.
6. ↑ Anica Cevc, Rihard Jakopić, in exh. Cat .: Paths to Modernity and the Ažbe School in Munich. Museum Wiesbaden 1988, p. 141.
7. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: In the run-up to Expressionism, Anton Ažbe and painting in Munich and Paris. Wiesbaden 1988, p. 35, fig. 2
8. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: In the run-up to Expressionism, Anton Ažbe and painting in Munich and Paris. Wiesbaden 1988, p. 10 ff
9. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Jawlensky and his companions in a new light. Munich 2004, Figs. 87 and 88. p. 85
10. ↑ Anica Cevc, Rihard Jakopić, in exh. Cat .: Paths to Modernity and the Ažbe School in Munich. Museum Wiesbaden 1988, p. 141.
11. ↑ Anica Cevc, Rihard Jakopić, in exh. Cat .: Paths to Modernism and the Ažbe School in Munich, Museum Wiesbaden 1988, p. 141

Web links

Commons : Rihard Jakopič  - collection of images, videos and audio files