Czech Painter Jaroslav čermák 1830 Prague- 1878 Paris "portrait Of A South Slavic Woman"

Czech painter Jaroslav Čermák 1830 Prague - 1878 Paris "Portrait of a South Slavic Woman"
Oil on canvas
Size: 84 x 64 cm
Signed lower left Jaroslav Čermák
Framed

After completing his studies at the parish school and college, at the age of thirteen, in 1848-1849, he became a student of Christian Ruben at the Prague Academy. Dissatisfied with the academic nature of the teaching based on plaster models, he left in 1849 via Munich, Dresden, Berlin and Düsseldorf for Antwerp, where he enrolled in the painting academy in the studio of G. Wappers, where he remained in 1849-1850. He then travelled to the Netherlands and France, where he studied in the studios of Louis Gallait in Brussels and Paris from 1850 to 1854. His love affair with Hyppolite Gallaitová, his teacher's wife, became the subject of František Kožík's novel Bonds of Loyalty. He was interested in historical painting, and his travels allowed him to depict the history of these regions. In the first half of the 1960s, he travelled to the South Slavic countries, especially Montenegro and Dalmatia, which, like Lord Byron, became the subject of his romantic paintings, especially the state of Turkish domination and the ensuing liberation struggle. In the second half of the 1960s, he travelled through France, the Côte d'Azur and the Pyrenees. During his stay in Paris, he became friends with Zdenka Braunerová. In the years 1865-1867 he lived in Italy, in Rome he painted his largest work, a multi-figure composition of Golgotha ​​measuring 99 × 392 cm, for his sister Maria, the married Princess Czartoryska. In 1869 he moved to France in Roscoff on the northern coast of Brittany. He also received an offer to become director of the Academy in Prague, but he declined it and preferred to stay abroad. In 1874 he had a house built in Paris at 128 Avenue de Wagram, in which he set up his studio. He died in 1878 in Paris and his remains were transferred to Prague in 1888. He is buried in the Olšany Cemetery in Prague.