Trzy czeskie szkoły sztuki sakralnej w epoce fin de siècle'u
Three Czech schools of sacred art in the period of fin de siècle

Summary/Abstract: This article is devoted to Catholic sacred visual art in the landsof the Bohemian Crown between 1880 and 1914, developedin three different types of art schools. The most influentialtrend in Christian art in nineteenth-century Central Europewas Nazarenism. Education according to its rules was conduc-ted by František Sequens, who ran a specialised studio at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Prague, called the “School of Religiousand Historical Painting” (1880–1896).The Beuron School of Sacred Art, operating within theBeuron Congregation of the Order of St Benedict, drew partly onthe impulses of Nazarenism. After their exile from Germany, thecongregation found their main home at the Emmaus MonasteryNa Slovanech in Prague from 1880 to 1886. The radical con-cept of hieratic art of its founder, Desiderius Peter Lenz, wasnot widely accepted, with a significant exception constitutedby the decoration of St Gabriel’s Church in Smíchov, Prague(1889–1899). Lenz’s school was also completed by several Czechstudents, who continued its tradition well into the 1920s and1930s. František Bílek, an outstanding sculptor and universalcreator of Czech Art Nouveau, also founded his own art school,which operated for almost a decade from 1899.All three schools declared their commitment to an ide-alistic concept of art, but differed in their creative approach tovarious aspects of religious experience: from idealised histori-cal narrative, through adorational exaltation of the sacred, tosymbolic evocation of mystical visions.

• Details
• Contents