La Grande Iza

With this painting Croatian artist Vlaho Bukovac started exhibiting his series of magnificent nudes at the Paris Salon in 1882. The canvas of the young and still unknown artist, who had not been noticed by critics earlier, generated considerable interest from the press, so that the street vendors were shouting “The highlight of the Salon! La Grande Iza by Bukovac!”, and the photographic reproduction of this painting sold thousands of copies. Inspired by Alexis Bouvier’s popular pulp novel from 1879 about a famous courtesan with the same title, published in installments in the newspaper La Lanterne, the painting was produced in the style of Manet’s Olympia, almost two decades older. Although today it looks like a typical academic realist painting, this female nude, with a certain sensuality, soft modelling, as well as a provocative posture, openly looking at the observer, at the time it represented a refreshing break from the the lifeless and conventional nudes which could usually be seen in Salons. Bukovac was fond of painting female nudes like Iza. During his entire creative life he painted nudes in interiors full of heavy drapery, or in a romantic landscape, where he used the play of sunlight on nature as a means of modelling. In time his palette grew more voluptuous and his facture more pastose and restless. Bukovac used a Parisian courtesan, who posed for him on subsequent occasions as well, as a model for his masterpiece; he would engage other models for the details.