cardboard, pastel, frame, glass, 43 × 59 cm, signed. PD K. Černý Š45The work under review "Malagelo" is an authentic, fully typical, cutting-edge
drawing work of Karel Černý, an unmissable solitaire of the generation,
who entered the art scene in the second half of the
1930s. In addition to
membership in the Mánes Society of Artists, he was not involved in the activities of other
art movements - the attitude of "exclusive solitude" became an ontological
category of his life and work. The basic characteristics of Černý
of Černá's work were monumental, compacted form and distinctive stylization,
a shape enclosed by a rhythmic outline, a sense of colour and a strong
melancholic to elegiac expression. A parallel world of extraordinary expression
intensity are the drawings, in which the artist has particularly developed the ability to
unique expressive tectonics in robustly stylized forms, his
typical "urgency of expression". While some drawings, especially pencil drawings
and angular, have a purely studious character, others, like the work under review,
executed in the artistically "dense" technique of pastel, comparable in its
in effect to the "fullness" of an oil painting, have the validity of definitive realisations.
Karel Černý was born in 1910 in Brno. From 1911 he lived in proletarian
conditions in Prague, where the family moved after the decline of his father's
confectionery business. Out of respect for his mother, who was the only one who was sympathetic to
his artistic direction and was always supportive of him, later added the name
he added the initial "Š" (Šichová, his mother's maiden name) to his name. After training as a mechanic
(1929), he attended a drawing and painting course at the evening
Workers' School, run by Jaroslav Kutman. In 1932 he studied at the
the Ukrainian Academy in Prague, but due to lack of funds he had to
to leave.
The way he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts became legendary.
of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1933, when he allegedly stood in front of the
the academy building until he was spotted by Professor Jakub
Obrovský. After subsequent consultation, he accepted him directly into the second
to the first year of his painting school. Karel Černý graduated in 1938, two
two years later he became a member of the SVU Mánes.
In 1946-1949 he visited
to France every year, especially to Paris.
Early on, he was attracted by Preisler's melancholic
work. Later, he was particularly attracted to the expressive work of Edvard Munch.
and the productive cubism of Bohumil Kubišta. These stimuli were reflected in his
his works with other influences such as fauvism, civilism and poetism to
to give rise to the artist's specific world of heightened emotion resulting from
from his physical handicap. Images of garden restaurants, bars, lovers,
flowers and still lifes - a stylized form of strong contours and large surfaces,
filled with colors that "could be cut" (the artist's words), tell a story
of the sadness of human loneliness. After an encounter with the sea and the Parisian art scene, the
culture
his dark canvases have brightened, yet they continue to
the anguish of a man for whom painting had become all that
he loved and lived for in his life. The concept of the still life is one that every artistic personality
individual shape and content. The relationship is formulated here
of the painter to reality, his philosophy of life, the issue of
of pictorial construction
as a microcosm of a new, unique artistic reality.
The theme of still life is inherent in the work of Karel Černý. It allowed him to express
the deepest essence of things, their loneliness, "abandonment", material
plasticity and magic of their being. The acute sensitivity of the solitary painter
required an alternative to the real vividness of the world: and that was the dream world
still life.
The present work "Malagelo" is an excellent, formally monumental
work by Černý, which is characterized by a sophisticated composition, representing
a closed, self-contained whole, with an emphasis on geometric shape, rustication
expression and an extremely impressive, contrasting
colouring. It is a valuable work
built on the contemporary principle of materiality, combined with a bravura
synthetic vision.
The individual subjects of the composition are artistically transformed, based on
subjective experience, absolutized, elementarized. They become
distinctive signs, united in a pregnant composition of expressive architectonics. Objects that belonged to the artist's life and were personal to him
meaning to the artist - a bottle of iron medicinal wine called Malagelo, which
known to the younger generations from the songs of Ivan Hlas and which, in the days of socialism
commonly available in pharmacies and drugstores, a tall glass,
the elegant "slender" and the black rose - are neatly arranged on a round
bar table, visually tilted towards the viewer. The artist "treats" them
literally as living beings (anthropomorphizing still lifes is very
typical), he leaves each thing its individual space so that it can
to unfold its mystery.
An extremely suggestive colour scheme, which seems to contrast the heaviness of the
wartime (brown, black) and the echo of a former poetic lightness (pink,
green, white), gives this work a special fatality. Karel Černý as
as if he were rendering here the memento of his "inner sadness", "a world in a circle, without
beginning and no end" (J. Drda).
From the expertise of Rei Michalová, PhDr. D.
Attached is the expert opinion of Rei Michalová, PhD. D.
#23024120
auction 65
65th auction of Fine Art, Antiques, Design and Glass
Information at aukce@sypka.cz, mob. 608 958 322.
