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Item Number: 115514
Title: KAREL SKRETA (1610-1674): His Work And His Era
Author: Stolarova, Lenka ; Vit Elnas (eds)
Price: Not Available
ISBN: 9788070354599
Description: Prague: National Gallery, 2010. 30cm., hardcover, 663pp. with numerous color plates. English text. Exhibition catalogue. From the museum's website : Karel Škréta Šotnovský of Závorice is regarded as the founder of the modern tradition of Czech painting and one of the finest artists to have been born in Bohemia. His varied stylistic range spans between elements of harmonious Classicism to dramatic Tenebrist compositions which prefigure the grandeur of High Baroque art. Alongside numerous prints and drawings, Škréta's artistic legacy includes both entrancing altarpieces and small-format intimate scenes. His paintings address religious and mythological as well as allegorical themes; his portraiture reveals Karel Škréta as a learned and acute observer of human nature. To mark the 400th anniversary of the artist's birth, the National Gallery in Prague together with the Prague Castle Administration and the Archdiocese of Prague have prepared a monumental retrospective exhibition of the works of Karel Škréta and his contemporaries. The core of the exhibition is the work of Karel Škréta, structured according to thematic sections. This versatile artist is presented here not only as an eminent painter and draughtsman, whose creative genius is attested to by a number of recently restored and often newly-discovered works, but also as the designer of a multitude of prints. The intellectual dimension of the artist, regarded by his contemporaries as a veritable pictor doctus, is illustrated by a representative sample drawn from Škréta's remarkable library, while original historical documents show Škréta as an astute and successful entrepreneur of the period following the Battle of White Mountain. The opening sections of the exhibition evoke Škréta's background in the Mannerist style of the Prague court of Rudolf II, and the transition between the stages of the Late Renaissance and the Early Baroque period to which the artist returned from Italy in the early 1630s. The exhibition likewise showcases architecture and urban planning of the period as well as Early Baroque sculpture - a province where Škréta's work found a distinguished counterpart in the figure of Jan Jirí (Johann Georg) Bendl. Alongside the central protagonist, the exhibition also presents those artists whom Škréta drew on in his work. Thus for the first time the paintings of the "Apelles of Prague" appear in direct confrontation with brilliant works, much praised in Škréta's day, by Annibale and Ludovico Carracci, Johann Karl Loth, Carlo Maratta, Bernardo Strozzi, and Guido Reni, whose ravishing Annunciation from Ascoli Piceno is an artistic masterpiece of the highest quality. The exhibition also presents works by Karel Škréta's colleagues from north of the Alps - among others Joachim von Sandrart, Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, and Tobias Pock. The viewer can thus form an idea as to the relevance of judgements by those art historians who had hitherto drawn comparisons from reproductions instead of the original paintings. A separate section is dedicated to the figure of Karel Škréta the Younger and issues related to Škréta's workshop and his followers. Commemoration of Škréta's artistic afterlife and the impressive cult he spawned, particularly during the Czech National Revival of the 19th century, forms a logical if at times rather droll epilogue to the exhibition.

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