František Kaván (10 September 1866, Víchovská Lhota near
Jilemnice
Jilemnice (; german: Starkenbach) is a town in Semily District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 5,400 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
Administrative part ...
- 16 December 1941,
Libuň near
Jičín
Jičín (; german: Jitschin or ''Gitschin'') is a town in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 16,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation.
T ...
) was a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
painter and poet.
Kaván studied at the gymnasium in
Hradec Králové
Hradec Králové (; german: Königgrätz) is a city of the Czech Republic. It has about 91,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Hradec Králové Region. The historic centre of Hradec Králové is well preserved and is protected by law as a ...
, which he finished in 1888. During 1889 to 1896 he studied painting at the academy in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
under the guidance of
Julius Mařák
Julius Eduard Mařák (29 March 1832, Litomyšl – 8 October 1899, Prague) was a Czech landscape painter and graphic designer.
Life
His father was an auditor and land registrar. His first painting lessons came while he was still in the Gymnasiu ...
. He was a member of the
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences ( Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Scienc ...
. He spent the end of his life in the area of
Krkonoše
The Giant Mountains, Krkonoše or Karkonosze (Czech: , Polish: , german: Riesengebirge) are a mountain range located in the north of the Czech Republic and the south-west of Poland, part of the Sudetes mountain system (part of the Bohemian Mas ...
, his birthplace. Kaván was a very humble and likeable person who had given away most of his paintings.
As a painter, he specialised in realistic
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
s and created over 4,000 paintings. He concentrated on the mountain areas of Krkonoše and Vysočina.
Unlike his paintings, Kaván's poems were soon forgotten. He also translated literary works from Russian.
Paintings
File:František Kaván - The Air of Home.jpg, ''Na vzduchu domova''
(1895)
File:František Kaván - Umrlčí cesta.jpg, ''Umrlčí cesta''
(1895–1896)
File:František Kaván - Tání (Příprašek).jpg, ''Tání – Příprašek''
(1899)
File:František Kaván - Vítanovská krajina.jpg, ''Vítanovská krajina''
(after 1920)
File:František Kaván - Zima u Hlinska.jpg, ''Zima u Hlinska''
(date unknown)
External links
Short biography, portrait and one painting (in Czech)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kavan, Frantisek
1866 births
1941 deaths
Landscape artists
Czech poets
Czech male poets
19th-century Czech painters
Czech male painters
20th-century Czech painters
People from Semily District
19th-century Czech male artists
20th-century Czech male artists
Painters from Austria-Hungary
Poets from Austria-Hungary
Czechoslovak painters
Czechoslovak poets