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FROM IDYLL TO LANDSCAPE OF DARKNESS AND SPECTRES: THE CESKÉ STREDOHORI IN THE WORK OF EMIL FILLA

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Winter T.

Umění (Art)

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2004

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vol. 52

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issue 1

37-51

EN

The paintings of the Ceské stredohori (Czech low mountain range), a hilly region of volcanic origin in north-western Bohemia, occupy a special position in the work of the painter and sculptor Emil Filla. They were made at the very end of the artist's life, in 1947-1952. Because of the subject matter of the paintings and the shift towards a more realistic form of depiction, certain theorists tended to classify them as socialist realist, the trend that dominated Czech plastic arts in the 1950s. This classification is no longer tenable, considering the wider historical context and the formal qualities of the works in question. These paintings do not represent a fundamental revolution in Filla's work; rather, they develop on his earlier landscape pieces. In the first half of the 1920s, he drew motifs from the Turnov region; the landscapes from the area of Máchovo jezero (Mácha's Lake) date from 1929. Moreover, after 1948 the painter was personally affected by a number of events. The official ideological rejection of Cubism as 'formalism' had a tragic culmination for Filla in the so-called trial: in June 1951, the members of the 3rd regional centre of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists Mánes discussed the artist's cycle Songs. The outcome of the 'trial' was that Filla was forbidden to exhibit anything but landscapes of the Ceské stredohori. These circumstances were reflected in the painter's works. After 1951, he no longer presented the landscape as an idyllic place, a closed hortus conclusus. The dramatic and expressive qualities of the works were heightened; at the same time, the influence of the paintings of Jan van Goyen and Chinese landscapes was apparent. Shortly before that, Filla had treated them in a theoretical study. He interpreted the Chinese landscape as a timeless, static place of 'absolute emptiness' and introduced these qualities into his paintings of the Ceské stredohori. This sort of conception of the landscape was at odds with the demands of socialist realism. Thus, in this phase, one can interpret the infiltration of forms of Chinese art in Filla's landscape work as a deepening of the universal dimension of the landscape, as well as an act of resistance against the dominant ideology. In the 1951 discussion of Filla's cycle Songs, some of those present had objected in particular to the inspiration of Chinese art that was manifest both in the format of the works, derived from the Chinese or the Japanese kakemono, as the case may be, and in the stylisation, based on Chinese models. Thus, in Filla's case, the forms of old Chinese painting ended up in the same position as Cubism. From the socialist realist point of view, these forms were undesirable, in particular in treatments of the Czech landscape and other 'national' themes. Thus, the introduction of the style of Chinese painting to pictures of the mountain range was not a dodging manoeuvre or a humiliating concession, but rather a provocative challenge to the stagnant ruling ideology. This was so even though Chinese artwork was admired by representatives of official circles in Czechoslovakia after 1952. It is clear that even at the end of his life, Filla was true to his reputation as a defender of freedom and the autonomy of art. Idyllic landscapes became landscapes of the spectres that pursued the artist in difficult times and oppressed his psyche.

2

CONTORTIONIST, CARICATURE AND THE GROTESQUE BODY

100%

Winter T.

Umění (Art)

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2007

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vol. 55

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issue 5

400-408

EN

Contortionist (1931) was one of the earliest oils created by the painter Frantisek Tichy during his five years in Paris. The painter returned to this subject matter in further works that reached their peak in paintings made in 1945. For Tichy, the Parisian period was a time of reassessment of his own style as a painter and the development of a highly individual technique based on Seurat-esque postimpressionism. Past interpreters of Tichy's works have already commented on certain elements of tension and ambivalence in his brushwork, enhanced by a particular treatment of light and building of space. Similar aspects are conveyed in the choice of subjects, including the contortionist. This article draws attention to historical examples of treatments of the contortionist figure and to links with the Devetsil movement, which shared with Tichy a strong fascination with circus. The article likewise shows that Tichy's contortionist figure is indebted to a bizarre drawing of two copulating homosexuals, its subversive quality further emphasised by scatological themes. Since Tichy produced other versions of the contortionist theme that allude to the act of excretion, this figure may be understood as a representative of the grotesque body as defined by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin. Tichy's work thus corresponds in certain points with the art of Jindrich Styrsky and the Surrealists, who were likewise attracted to scatological themes and also with the work of satirical draughtsmen and caricaturists, with a longer tradition of scatological subjects reaching back to the 16th century. Examples of period reviews demonstrate that Tichy's paintings were rich in associative meanings, akin to the perception of Surrealist works and the Surrealist discovery of concrete irrationality. Tichy's works oscillated between social critique in terms of subject matter, a personally engaged self-stylisation and a certain subversiveness that disrupted the conventional meanings of the individual themes.

3

FROM CUBISM TO MYTH. THE BANDIT SONGS OF EMIL FILLA

100%

Winter T.

Umění (Art)

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2005

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vol. 53

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issue 3

252-272

EN

To this day, the assessment of Emil Filla's last creative phase remains problematic. Within this period, the cycle on the theme of Slovak bandit songs, made between 1948 and 1951, constitutes a special chapter. The article treats period interpretations of these works, outlining the intellectual context out of which they grew. It looks in detail at Filla's attitude to questions of 'nationality' and the 'Czech character' of art, folk art and the work of Mikolás Ales. These issues appeared in various phases of Filla's life and were rooted in the time of the Group of Fine Artists (Skupina výtvarných umelcu). A key point in the article is the explanation of the 'crossing' of Asian and folk art forms, of cubism and the influence of Ales' work in the cycle of bandit songs. In light of Filla's own reflections, these paintings are interpreted as depictions of a myth, which the painter struggled to formulate. This is in line with their artistic structure and conception of space, which resonates with the interwar analysis of mythic space proposed by Ernst Cassirer. At the end of the study, Filla's work is considered from the perspective of Roland Barthes' analysis of mythical language.

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FROM IDYLL TO LANDSCAPE OF DARKNESS AND SPECTRES: THE CESKÉ STREDOHORI IN THE WORK OF EMIL FILLA

CONTORTIONIST, CARICATURE AND THE GROTESQUE BODY

FROM CUBISM TO MYTH. THE BANDIT SONGS OF EMIL FILLA