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