(Trst, 22.8.1887- Trst, 30.6.1951)
Avgust Andrej Bucik was a Slovenian painter, draftsman and illustrator, and above all a great portraitist for the influential middle class. He received his first art education in his home environment from Professor Anton Gvajc, after which he headed for Vienna. There he attended a high technical school with an emphasis on architecture, and in 1913 he transferred to a private painting school. During his studies, he often visited galleries and copied the works of old masters.
He was a big fan of officially recognised art, so he himself aspired to the salon realist style in his images. At the beginning of his painting career, Bucik was also inspired by the popular Slovenian impressionists at the time, but he quickly developed his own style with an emphasis on depicting nature. He was not interested in everything that was modern and followed new art movements. At the beginning of the First World War, he had to give up his education. Then he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army, in which he was captured by the Russians. From 1916, he spent three years in Moscow. There, Bucik met a great patron of art, who introduced him to Russian painting. Already at this time, he painted a lot of portraits. He most often depicted women, as he achieved an extremely popular status among the middle class due to the flattery of his subjects. He is said to have produced more than 900 portraits, most of which were completely destroyed during the bombing of Milan. Regardless of the fact that he obtained many commissions, art critics treated him more negatively due to excessive idealisation. He was criticised for having created the same expression for all the people depicted, in which he skilfully evaded the individuality of the individuals.
Other directly recognisable motifs found in Andrej Bucik's oeuvre include images of domestic and foreign landscapes. In his time, he was considered an exceptional traveller, as he visited China, Singapore, India, Egypt and Italy, and between 1927 and 1932, Algiers, Casablanca and other European countries. During his travels, he painted vedutes in oil on canvas and with pastels and collected various objects from world cultures. In the period between the two wars, he devoted himself mainly to book illustration. Despite the fact that there are an extremely large number of works in his oeuvre, Bucik was not overly enthusiastic about exhibiting them. He only participated in a few important ones, e.g. at a group exhibition of Slovenian artists, in 1909, in the Jakopič Pavilion. In 1923, together with Dolinar, he again presented his works in the same exhibition hall. He planned the last exhibition shortly before his death, in 1951, in Trieste, where most of the artist's works were to be presented.
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Avgust Andrej Bucik je bil slovenski slikar, risar in ilustrator predvsem pa velik portretist za vplivni meščanski razred. Prvo umetnostno izobrazbo je v domačem okolju prejel pri profesorju Antonu Gvajcu, nato pa se je odpravil proti Dunaju. Tam je obiskoval visoko tehnično šolo s poudarkom na arhitekturi, leta 1913 pa se je prepisal na zasebno slikarsko šolo. V času študija je večkrat zahajal v galerije in kopiral dela starih mojstrov.
Bil je velik ljubitelj uradno priznane umetnosti, zato je v svojih podobah tudi sam stremel k stilu salonskih realistov. Na začetku slikarske kariere se je Bucik zgledoval tudi po takrat priljubljenih slovenskih impresionistih a je hitro izoblikoval lasten slog s poudarkom na upodabljanju po naravi. Vse kar je bilo moderno in je sledilo novim umetnostnim gibanjem, ga ni zanimalo. Ob začetku prve svetovne vojne je moral opustiti izobraževanje. Tedaj so ga vpoklicali v avstro-ogrsko vojsko, v kateri je padel pod rusko ujetništvo. Od leta 1916 je tri leta preživel v Moskvi. Tam se je Bucik seznanil z velikim mecenom umetnosti, ki ga je seznanil z ruskim slikarstvom. Že v tem času je ogromno portretiral. Največkrat je upodabljal ženske, saj je zaradi laskanja upodobljencem dosegel izjemno priljubljen status med meščanskim razredom. Izdelal naj bi več kot 900 portretov, med katerimi je bila večina popolnoma uničenih med bombardiranjem Milana. Ne glede na to, da je pridobil veliko naročil, so ga umetnostni kritiki zaradi pretirane idealizacije večkrat bolj negativno obravnavali. Očitali so mu, da je pri vseh upodobljencih ustvaril enak izraz v katerem se je spretno izmaknil individualnosti posameznikov.
Med druge neposredno spoznavne motive, ki jih najdemo v opusu Andreja Bucika sodijo še podobe domače in tuje krajine. V svojem času je veljal za izjemnega popotnika, saj je obiskal Kitajsko, Singapur, Indijo, Egipt in Italijo, med leti 1927 in 1932 pa še Alžir, Casablanco in druge evropske dežele. Med potovanji je slikal vedute v tehniki olja na platno in s pasteli ter zbiral raznovrstne predmete svetovnih kultur. V času med obema vojnama se je posvetil predvsem knjižni ilustraciji. Kljub temu, da je v njegovem opusu izjemno veliko del, se Bucik ni pretirano navduševal nad razstavljanjem. Sodeloval je zgolj na nekaj pomembnejših npr. na skupinski razstavi slovenskih umetnikov, leta 1909, v Jakopičevem paviljonu. V istem razstavišču je leta 1923 skupaj z Dolinarjem ponovno predstavil svoja dela. Zadnjo razstavo je načrtoval tik pred smrtjo, leta 1951, v Trstu na kateri naj bi predstavili večino umetnikovih del.
Besedilo je za galerijo Porta Alpina pripravila Pia Župevec, dipl. um. zgod.
The text was prepared for the Porta Alpina gallery by Pia Župevec, B.Sc. art history
SOURCES/VIRI:
Alenka di BATTISTA, s. v. Bucik, Avgust, Andrej (1887-1951), Novi slovenski biografski leksikon, 3 zv. Ble-But, Ljubljana 2018, https://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi151726/ (28.6.2024).
Marijan BRECELJ, s. v. Bucik, Avgust, Andrej (1887-1951), Primorski slovenski biografski leksikon, 3 snop. Bor - Čopič, Gorica 1976, https://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi151726/ (28.6.2024).
Karel DEŽMAN, s. v. Bucik, Andrej, Enciklopedija Likovnih Umjetnosti, 1, Zagreb 1959, p. 525.
France STELE, Dve razstavi, Dom in Svet, XXXVI/6, 1923, pp. 191-192.
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