Jovan Četirević Grabovan

Jovan Četirević Grabovan (Serbian Cyrillic: Јован Четиревић Грабован; ca. 1720–1781), was a Serbian icon painter active during the 18th century; he is regarded one of the masters of Serbian Orthodox iconostasis painters. He painted the Lepavina and Orahovica monasteries, among others.

Četirević was born in Grabovë, near the lake Ohrid area. His family was of Aromanian descent, from Albania.

His professional career began in the Habsburg territories, such as Osijek (today in Croatia), and what is today Vojvodina, in the service of Orthodox Serbs (the Metropolitanate of Karlovci). Although his painting style was from the southern Balkans, he was influenced by western art style, in order to fulfill the wider tastes of his employers. His works are to be found in Serbian Orthodox churches scattered across Croatia (Slavonia), Hungary and Vojvodina.

From the church registers we know that Jovan Grabovan lived in Osijek with his mother, brother, sister and six children. It was here that Grabovan got acquainted with baroque painting that would transform his work. He remained living in this town until his death and he signed most of his icons as the “inhabitant of Osijek” (stanovnik osečki).

Grabovan is considered to be one of the best icon painters of the period. He modeled notions of late medieval, so called “zoographic” painting which he brought from his native land and absorbed the much sought new, baroque style. He developed an original style, somewhat more traditional in comparison with other Serbian icon painters of the period. On the other hand, Grabovan was an inquiring mind and he adopted many baroque features developing a bolder, more independent style, with exquisite baroque modeling of figures which are now much less static, naturalistic portraits and absence of golden background. In some of his works (Szekesfehervar iconostasis), with his light palette Grabovan even comes close to Rococo style.

Grabovan painted a number of iconostasises, all of them in Serb churches and monasteries. This is a list of some of his works:

• Molovin church in Srem (1772)
• Orahovica church in Slavonia (1775)
• monastery of Lepavina in Croatia (1775)
• Székesfehérvár church in Hungary (together with Grigorije Popović, 1776)
• Slatina church (1785)
• Pavlovac church in Croatia

His last work dates from 1780.

It seems that he was also working as a wood carver.