The development of painting art conjoined with Czechia started in the Romanesque period. The oldest preserved and simultaneously most artistically important work of that time is the murals in St. Catherine’s rotunda in Znojmo from 1134, exceptional in Romanesque art throughout Europe by focusing on the ideology of the state.
The decorative painting of manuscripts was very popular in both the Romanesque and the Gothic periods. The most exquisite work, which had not had an analogue in Central Europe at the time, was the Vyšehrad Codex - the Coronation Gospels of King Vratislaus - from the beginning of the 12th century.
In the Gothic Era, panel paintings were flourishing. The most important are works of Master of Vyšší Brod altar and Master of Třeboň altar, the founders of the style, which dominated European painting around 1400, unique also for inclusion of Byzantine elements, which are typical for the Czech art of that period, and Master Theodoricus, the court painter of Charles IV, who filled the ruler's chapel of Holy Cross in Karlštejn castle by 130 paintings. The late Gothic art with a Renaissance touch is represented by the work of the Master of Litoměřice Altarpiece.
The most important Czech masters of Baroque painting were Petr Brandl, the author of many large altarpieces, where all the characters are very vivid, often very emotional, and always convincingly done; Jan Kupecký, who managed to perfectly capture the appearance of a person and his character traits in his portraits; and Karel Škréta, who excelled as a portrait painter and illustrator.
An exceptional Czech artist of Baroque art was Václav Hollar, living later in London, the etcher of worldwide recognition. His views of European cities, engravings of ships, allegories and rich collection of graphic arts, depicting fauna and flora are unparalleled in the European art at that time.
The most important figure of classicist painting was Antonín Mánes. His work underwent a colorful evolution from composed classicist landscapes, romantically ragged scenery up with very realistic landscapes.
Typical representants of the period of pure Romanticism are the mysterious master of the work with the light Adolf Kosárek and the color perfectionist Josef Navrátil.
The late phase of Romanticism is represented by Josef Mánes, who is considered the founding personality of the Czech visual arts of that time, and master of the landscape painting. He is the author of allegorical boards of famous Astronomical Clock in Prague from 1866.
The second half of the 19th century, dominated by artists of romantic realism, with predominantly nationally oriented topics such as František Ženíšek, Vaclav Brožík, Luděk Marold, Vojtěch Hynais (designer of the curtain of the Prague National Theater), Karel Purkyně or Julius Mařák.
The realistic period in fine arts comes with Antonín Chittussi. His own concept of landscapes seen in vivid terrain, in the disorderly segment of reality, and in the natural diffuse light. In particular, his smaller paintings with quick, easy brushstrokes belong to the jewels of Czech painting. The beginnings of the modern conception of landscape painting was substantially influenced by Antonín Slavíček. His works with the touch of impressionism perfectly expressed visual atmospheric phenomena, but also the inner substance of the landscapes, situations and moods.
Some kind of dark realism represents the melancholic and dark atmosphere of the works of the painter of mysterious Prague night corners and socially oriented themes Jakub Schikaneder. Virtuoso painter, portraitist, illustrator and creator of stamps and banknotes, the author of several monumental works and the founder of Czech Graphic School, Max Švabinský, with realistic groundings of his extensive work has to be mentioned.
Symbolism manifested itself in Czechia in mysterious paintings of Jan Preisler, combining influences of both symbolism and impressionism. A kind of second wave of symbolism, is associated in Czechia with the Sursum society of modern Czech art, associated with mysticism, theosophy and occultism. Noteworthy are Jan Zrzavý, who later developed his art into mystically spiritual forms using unmistakeable meaning of expression and Josef Váchal, another mystical traveller into the ambivalent world with expressively - in the philosophical sense - joining visions.
Alfons Mucha, world famous and one of the best known Czech artist is the main representative of Art Nouveau decorative painting, but his work contains also sculptures, various kinds of applied arts (jewelry and more) and photography. Awareness of this painter quickly spread beyond the borders of Czechia. In the 1890s he lived and worked in Paris. His posters became quickly well-known and his style influenced artists worldwide.
Created between 1910 and 1928, Alfons Mucha’s masterpiece is the cycle of 20 monumental canvases named The Slavic Epic (Slovanská epopej), depicting the history of the Slavic people and civilization and portray the main historical events of his own nation, the Czechs.
One of the most important Czech painters ever is František Kupka. He is considered a pioneer of abstract art, influencing subtantially all modern painting movements. His geometric abstraction concept is called “orphism”. He expresses a musical rhythm through the motion of a colored line or the dynamic gradation of colored areas. František Kupka started as realistic painter and his abstract art arose gradually from that base. The most inspirational are “Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colours” in several versions and “Warm Chromatics”, works which were of fundamental importance for the birth of abstract art, “Amorpha” is considered the milestone of it. The painter completely abandoned the traditional world of figures and objects (in the spirit of "the role of artist is not to depict what we already see, but its invisible substance") and set out into the unexplored unknown, where the leading role is played only by colours, their strength and shapes, movement, mutual relations, harmony and composition.
Czech Cubism is represented by Emil Filla, who's work contains a strong reflection on both military conflicts and Josef Čapek, consisting of deep social feeling and humanism. In addition to the world-famous personalities abstract painting in this period devoted several painters, for example, Vojtěch Preissig and František Foltýn.
Modern-feeling landscape painters of the interwar period included Rudolf Kremlička, Václav Špála, Vincenc Beneš, and by Cubism slightly influenced Otakar Kubín in his harmonious landscapes, also known for his still lifes and flowers in a delicate color scale.
Another original and important personality of surrealism with international acclaim is Josef Šíma. His pictures introduce us to a mysterious stillness where rocks transform into living beings, floating weightlessly, while inanimate things generally take on human form. Among others things, he was a member of the famous French artistic group "Le Grand Jeu". Another representant of the style, František Muzika initially created a new pictorial reality in the form of so-called lyrical cubism, later involved strong surrealist elements in his work.
A global vision of destruction was encoded into the program of surrealistic group Ra. Its work was the most imaginative line of the Czech pre-war art, conjoined with names Bohdan Lacina and Josef Istler.
World War II affected the nature of Czech art and caused a tendency toward experimentation in the new humanist subjects. Artists had to encrypt symbols because they were addressing a state of existential distress. After the Communist coup in 1948 the role and position of art became similar. The effort of various artistic groups to depict the role of man in modern civilization, which changes into a mere machine and steals his uniqueness, mainly influenced by civilism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, and a bit by surrealism. There is typical an obvious and characteristic enchantment by technology, evident in frequent focus on cities, factories, industry, and machines with human characters of common town people, represented by František Hudeček, Jan Kotik, Kamil Lhoták or František Gross.
In the post-war art, however during 1950's hidden because of strong pressure of communist regime on artists to produce so called socialistic realism, they appeared several artists in Czechia, whose work was unique, but they became more known only in sixties, when political situation in the country allowed some kind of artistic freedom. Key figures of that period are Vladimír Boudník, a representative of the "explosionism" movement with active structural graphic art, painter of philosophical visions Jan Koblasa, and
Mikuláš Medek, the most important Czech painter of post-war art in my opinion, starting with surrealistic influence, but gradually creating original symbolism of abstract sign systems with special shapes and colour language as metaphors for human existence in its tragic, picturesque and painful reality, but intensely thirsting for meaningful dimensions. His works are passionate and calm together, being the experienced confrontational dialogue between inner and transdimensional space.
Medek's intense mystical expression, internal consistency, authenticity of the message, powerful spiritual energy radiating from his paintings, represent one of the most important and the most original personalities of not only Czech, but also of 20th century painters worldwide. His artistic independence and spiritual dimensions were finely expressed, even at a time of implacable hostility towards modern art and free thinking (more about this painter in my article at "Mikuláš Medek: Metaphysical transformation of Pain").
Other important painters oriented in spirituality and mysticism in the huge critic relation to the state of human decline of second half of the 20th century are Bohuslav Reynek and Josef Jíra.
To the most interesting works of contemporary artists belong works of Vladimír Kokolia, some kind of caricature of contemporary human, but it is not only mockery, but a genuine existential distress, featured by masterful shortcut into a categorical imperative.
Vladimír Hirsch 2007(the extract of the article "Art Of Czechia)
Vladimír Hirsch
