Article: Lifestyles Magazine Prague: František Kaván’s coveted ‘Mazbičky’ are pure Czech Impressionism
Village Idyll (from Vítanov), oil on canvas, dated before the year 1910
He is a most beloved artist, the creator of more than 4,000 canvases. Yet he’s hardly known outside the Czech Republic.
He was taught by some of the Czech masters, among them Julius Mařak. Yet when other students went on to study the great masters in the world art centers of Florence and Paris, he retreated to the mountains of North Bohemia to paint quaint village life.
He had a nickname – “Mazbičky” (roughly, “little daubs”) – for what he called his badly-painted little landscapes. Yet they continue to appreciate and to sell comfortably for tens of thousands of Czech crowns today.
Houses of the sister in Železnice, oil on canvas, dated around the year 1910
František Kaván, born in the village of Víchovské Lhotě near Jilemnice in 1866, lived a long and prolific life as a painter. He had the typical credentials of the time – studying at the Painters Academy under Mařak, affiliation with the Czech Academy of Art – but more than anything he preferred to take off his shoes, get outdoors, and paint. His atmospheric, impressionistic scenes of rural and village life hold a special place in the hearts of Czechs, says Martin Kodl, owner of Kodl Galerie, Prague.
“Kaván came from very poor conditions and spent a whole life in absolute modesty, humility, and admiration and respect for nature, which can be discovered in his paintings,” he says. “He was also a great contemplator of nature, and thus he could masterfully catch the mood and atmosphere of the moment.”
Kodl classifies Kaván as a plein-air painter. “When he wanted to catch a summer mood, whether morning or evening, he went barefoot into nature to feel the atmosphere better, but also to avoid squashing a beetle or a bee. Even when he painted his impressive, suggestive winter motifs he used to go outdoors. Sometimes he worked almost till freezing to feel the winter cold so as to paint the most authentically.”
His preference for bucolic scenes limited strictly to obscure Czech locations may explain his lack of exposure and fame outside the country. As Kodl describes it, “František Kaván is a purely Czech author. You can feel the atmosphere of a typical Czech village and Czech landscape in his works. That`s why he is mainly addressed to Czech people.”
Dry rocks at Suché, oil on canvas, dated 1899
While the investment value of a Kaván landscape may not be in league with the French impressionists, his paintings still bring respectable, and affordable, prices. For example, in 1998 his “Chrudimka pod Sněhem” ([the town of] Chrudim under the snow), a 49×38 cm oil, brought CZK 43,000, according to reports. On the other hand, a year earlier, “Krajina s Borovicemi” (landscape with pines), a 26×37 cm oil, was sold for CZK 15,000; but “Vřesoviště” (heath), a slightly smaller 26×36 cm oil, was sold for CZK 54,000.
“Kaván has always been an expensive, popular and – by Czech collectors – a sought-after author,” Kodl says “Prices of his works increase proportionally, similar to the prices for pieces by other Mařak pupils. Whenever a good Kaván painting is offered, it always sells very well,” the auction, sales, and exhibition gallery owner says.
Czech art enthusiasts and collectors will be able to see several of Kaván’s works in the near future when the gallery opens an exhibition of recently discovered and collected works by the artist. An out-of-print monograph on the painter will also be re-issued by the gallery, according to Kodl.
Pink Winter, oil on canvas, dated around the year 1910
