The Gravedigger by Josef Mánes: Personal Sorrow, Graveyard Reportages and Landscape of Mood in 19th - Century Painting

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F75032333%3A_____%2F21%3AN0000169" target="_blank" >RIV/75032333:_____/21:N0000169 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.umeni-art.cz/cz/detail/6de5NY" target="_blank" >https://www.umeni-art.cz/cz/detail/6de5NY</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Gravedigger by Josef Mánes: Personal Sorrow, Graveyard Reportages and Landscape of Mood in 19th - Century Painting

Original language description

The painting The Undertaker (1843) is an early work by Josef Mánes (1820–1871). The chosen motif corresponds to the contemporary interest in funerary and macabre themes that appear in painting and the fine literature of European Romanticism. Interesting analogies are offered, among others, by the work of Caspar David Friedrich and the literary works of Karel Hynek Mácha and Karel Sabina. The initial impulse for the choice of the theme was, in addition to the contemporary interest in sepulchral motifs, also the death and subsequent funeral of Mánes' teacher at the Prague Academy, František Tkadlík. The strengthening of the autobiographical line of the painting can be traced in its genesis (1840–1843), documented by two oil studies. During the preparatory work, the artist was affected by the serious illness of his father, the painter Antonín Mánes, and by the conditions at the Prague Academy. Despite personal disagreements with the Academy leadership, the young Mánes was inspired by the work of so-called lyrical painters in the spirit of moody landscape painting, as represented in the Prague environment by Christian Ruben, Mánes's other teacher and director of the Academy. The final treatment of the painting reflects both the characteristic features of moody landscape painting and Mánes' informal training with his father Antonín during direct observation of the landscape. The specificity of the work in Mánes's work is also proven by the fact that he never returned to a similar theme. The painter presented this painting at the spring exhibition organized by the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art, where he exhibited the painting The Death of Luke of Leyden together with it. This is traditionally perceived as a painted epitaph of the painter's father and it is clear that it creates a counterpart to The Undertaker in terms of content. Despite the favorable criticism at the time, The Undertaker was mostly assessed by later art historical literature as an average work by a budding artist, whose appearance and iconography were influenced by the stereotypes of Romantic painting at the time, which can be subsequently described as an inaccurate and simplistic assessment.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60401 - Arts, Art history

Project

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Continuities

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Umění/Art

ISSN

1804-6509

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

68

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

17

Pages from-to

266–282

UT code for WoS article

000763585000002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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