Publication details
Jan Smetana, Z Michle
| Title in English | Jan Smetana, From Michle |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The art-historical study deals with the theme of the industrial landscape of Prague's Michle in the work of Jan Smetana. In the 1940s, Smetana deliberately sought out non-painterly views of the urban landscape marked by human activity, and in the Michle gasworks he found an impressive counterpart to František Gross's gasworks in Libeň. In a small format, he transposed a specific motif of an imposing building into pictorial space according to artistic laws, thus transferring reality into the sign language of the image. The industrial scene is illuminated with the author's typical atmospheric light. Smetana emphasizes the light values of the painting, creating a vast airy space above a very low horizon. His subtle, sensual colour conception gives the scene an atmosphere of morning clear air with a very lyrical tone. |