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'WE ARE SEARCHING IN HISTORY FOR OUR OWN LOVES'. STILL-LIFES, CARAVAGGIO AND CUBISM: A CZECH READING

100%

Lahoda V.

Umění (Art)

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2007

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vol. 55

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issue 3

196-206

EN

This study deals with Caravaggio's role in Czech thought on Cubism. It begins with a discussion between Vincenc Kramar and Karel Teige which took place in 1949. Perhaps surprisingly, Teige refers to Caravaggio in his concept of Cubist 'tectonic painting': Caravaggio's painting aims at pure plasticity and less so at subject matter, which is reason for the avant-garde theoretician to put him in the same category as the architecture plate et coloree of Juan Gris or Picasso's 'tectonic paintings' in which the pure plasticity or sculpturality of matter dominates. In presenting Caravaggio as a precursor of the modernist sculptural conception of painting, Teige was preceded by the Czech Cubist painter Emil Filla (1882-1953), who acquainted himself well with the works of the old Dutch masters during his exile in Holland in 1914-1920 and dealt with the idea of 'objectivity' in their work. In the introduction to 'Dutch Still Life' (1916), an article published in the magazine 'Volne smery' (Free Directions) (XXII, 1924-1925), he mentions the name of Caravaggio, whom he takes to be the founder of a peculiar genre of still lifes which hearkened back to the Dutch masters of the 17th century. Filla emphasises the idea of objectivity which is neither a scientific documentary quality nor a pure objectivism, but the result of an action on the part of a subject - the creative act of a painter. For Filla, objectivity means a conciliation between objective and subjective factors in a painted object. In 1925, Filla published, also in 'Volne smery', a study on Caravaggio's vocation. Once again, Filla holds Carvaggio's sculptural conception of the surface of painting in high regard. Filla's work is followed up by his friend and collector, the patron of Cubism and art historian Vincenc Kramar in his essay 'The Inception and Character of the Modern Still Life: Caravaggio's Creative Act' (Volne smery XXIII, 1924-1925, pp. 129-160, 177-179). When Filla was writing his reflections on Jan van Goyen and on Caravaggio in the early 1950s at Peruc Castle, he was visited by the photographer Josef Sudek. He listened attentively to the well-versed painter's thoughts on Cubism, 17th-century Dutch art and Caravaggio. Sudek's photographically arranged still lifes in honour of Caravaggio of 1956 which he did not create until after Filla's death (1953) may be understood as a reminiscence of Peruc and his friend Filla as well as of the role of Caravaggio in Filla's theory.

2

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

80%

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.

3

ALCHEMIST AND MAGICIAN. JOSEF SUDEK AND EMIL FILLA

80%

Lahoda V.

Umění (Art)

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2004

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vol. 52

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issue 6

518-536

EN

The article treats the development and impact of the dialogue between the photographer Josef Sudek and the painter Emil Filla. Sudek was referred to by some of his friends as an 'alchemist'. In a review in 1947, Frantisek Kovárna described Emil Filla as a 'magician'. Filla became acquainted with Josef Sudek sometime in the 1920s, probably through his editorial work for the journal 'Volné smery' (Free Directions). Filla built up an extensive archive of Sudek's reproductions of his own paintings. 'Chaos' was one of the favourite concepts that Sudek employed in analysing his photography. It was connected with the 'principle of uncertainty' that Anna Fárová has studied as the common denominator in all of Sudek's works. The concept of 'chaos' was most in evidence in Sudek's 'Labyrinth' cycles, strange and mysterious still lifes. Chaos was another expression of the confusion that fascinated Sudek as early as the photographs of St Vitus (1924-1928). Metamorphosis, inner transformation, uncertainty - these were also characteristic of Filla's cubist paintings. Filla had a tendency to describe artwork in terms of 'nternal expansiveness', 'dramatic explosiveness', and 'charged energy'. Elsewhere in Filla's texts, the concept of chaos is suggested by the term 'cacophony'. Filla considered it to be an essential part of language, including the language of art. In 1933, an exhibition of Filla's drawings was held in the 'Krásná jizba' (Beautiful Room) in Prague. Josef Sudek, who had had his first exhibition there in 1932, probably helped Filla get a show in the DP sales room. One of the collections that Sudek showed in his first exhibition in 'Krásná jizba' was the set of photographs taken of the completion of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. Sudek interpreted the interiors of the church as still lifes, with a sort of surrealist disorder. Some of Sudek's photographs have a quality that one might call a cubist representation of space. This principle was the foundation of what Sudek called 'imaginary space'. The unified, perspectival space as seen through a peep-hole was disturbed by one, or sometimes a series of interspaces that had a separate meaning and impact. Even back then, Sudek was undoubtedly familiar with Filla's still lifes, which were examples of the construction of a magical space. Introducing 'chaos' into a photograph did not mean just creating a bizarre arrangement of things and objects, Sudek's characteristic 'mess', but also destabilising the point of view of the section photographed. The interpretation of the 'cubist' principle is even more obvious in Sudek's unique series 'Glass Labyrinths' (1963-1972). There he used glass plates or mirrors to create a multitude of spaces with the help of reflections and views of things. In the 1930s, but especially after his return from Buchenwald and after the renewed contact at the end of the 1940s, Filla initiated Sudek into the mysteries of cubist and Dutch still lifes, into questions of the origin of still lifes and the role of Caravaggio, about whom he published a theoretical study (The Mission of Caravaggio, 1925). Hence Sudek's photograph 'Still Life after Caravaggio' (1956). In 1948, Sudek visited Filla at the Peruc Chateau in the 'Ceské stredohori' (Bohemian Upland), which was loaned to Filla as a residence by the Czechoslovak state after his return from the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the beginning of the 1950s, Sudek inspired Filla to work on horizontal, elongated landscape drawings of the 'Ceské stredohori', which Sudek photographed using a panoramic camera. Sudek's cycle 'Memories' was also started at Peruc. Like Sudek in 'Memories', Filla in his paintings, perhaps under the impression of the poetic souvenirs of the photographer, also dwelt on beauty, the past and, above all, Holland, where he had lived in 1914-1920. What connected Sudek and Filla was a common sense of the intuitiveness of the creative process.

4

FROM CUBISM TO MYTH. THE BANDIT SONGS OF EMIL FILLA

80%

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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'WE ARE SEARCHING IN HISTORY FOR OUR OWN LOVES'. STILL-LIFES, CARAVAGGIO AND CUBISM: A CZECH READING

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

ALCHEMIST AND MAGICIAN. JOSEF SUDEK AND EMIL FILLA

FROM CUBISM TO MYTH. THE BANDIT SONGS OF EMIL FILLA