The exhibition program of the Valdštejnská jízdárna always manages to pleasantly surprise the cultural public with its focus, and the authors succeeded in doing so this time as well. After more than fifty years, the National Gallery in Prague reached for the work of the representative of the high baroque, Petr Brandl, whose work is mainly represented by monumental altarpieces, portraits and other interesting genre paintings. The curator of the exhibition, Andrea Steckerová, tries to find parallels between the author's works and his turbulent bohemian life. Gallery visitors have the opportunity to see, in addition to Brandlovich's notorious paintings, some of his rediscovered works.
Petr Brandl was born in 1668 in Prague on the Mala Strana. His father, Michal Brandl, was a German tailor from Horné Rychnov, and his mother, Alžbeta Hrbková, came from a peasant family in South Bohemia. Petr received his education at the Jesuit high school at St. Nicholas. Thanks to his uncle Marek Hrbek, who was an important Prague goldsmith, he got into the painting school of the castle painter Kristián Schröder, where he had the opportunity to study the works of the old masters Titian, Veronese or Rubens. Although he later became a member of the painting guild, from the beginning he violated its rules in his work. Adherence to guild restrictions in painting defied his perception of artistic freedom. In 1693, he married Františka Helena Klossová, with whom he had two daughters and one son. However, married life did not suit him too well and their coexistence was full of scandals. The bohemian painter loved wine, often had affairs with women, incurred debts and even found himself in prison several times. Despite being one of the highest paid painters of his time, he couldn't keep up the money. He liked to live on the high side and did not pay back his debts. Due to the fact that he did not pay the rent for his apartment in Prague, he temporarily escaped to Hradec Králové, where he was put under house arrest due to his inability to pay his debts. He spent the end of his life in Kutná Hora, where he died in absolute poverty in 1735 in Hostinc u Černý koník. After his death, his body was dumped on the straw in front of the inn. Despite his eventful life, Petr Brandl left behind an exciting work that still takes the breath away of visitors to the exhibition even after 300 years. Probably the most famous iconic work of the author is his Self-Portrait with the Gesture of Counting on the Fingers from 1725. The nearly 60-year-old painter painted himself as a spendthrift with a velvet headdress lined with otter fur and dressed in a gray-green coat decorated with gold. The artist's desire for self-knowledge is visibly captured in this self-portrait. The painting of the Repentant Mary Magdalene from 1693 was originally a ceiling painting of the Benedictine monastery in Skalka near Mníšek pod Brdy. The owner of the monastic estate, Baron Servác Ignác Engel from Engelsfluss, commissioned the work. Mary Magdalene, a reformed sinner who spent 30 years in penance in a cave, is captured on it praying. The skull at her feet represents hermit life in renunciation, the wooden cross and the book are symbols of conversion to the true faith. In the 17th century, especially in Dutch painting, the topic of smoking tobacco was very popular, and it did not escape even Peter Brandl, who, in the painting The Smoker painted around 1700, was based on the work of Adriaen Brouwer and David II. Teniers. The theme of the painting used to be interpreted in the past in the moral context of the fight against tobacco smokers. Evidence that Brandl liked to discover new techniques is the work Simeon with Baby Jesus from around 1925, which is painted partly with fingers and partly with a brush handle. This technique allowed him to better concentrate on the inner structure of the painting. The painting expresses the biblical story of the pious old man Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit predicted that he would not die before seeing the Son of God. In the expression of the old man with the baby Jesus in his arms, the moment of knowledge is visibly mixed with the awareness of imminent death. In the later work of Peter Brandl, darker and richer tones, including the color black, begin to appear in his works. In the painting The Passion of Saint Bartholomew from 1732, he recorded the moment of the martyrdom of Bartholomew, who was flayed alive. The work was originally created for the main altar in the Church of St. Bartholomew in Kutná Hora, but after the church was abolished, the painting was bought for the Church of St. Bartholomew in Kolín. The largest work of the whole exhibition is the painting from 1721 The History of Joseph of Egypt, which was commissioned by Count František Josef Černín for his picture gallery in the palace in Hradčany. In it, Brandl combined three episodes of the story of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, where he later became the administrator of the country. When the brothers returned to Egypt in the time of famine to buy grain, they did not recognize the brother in the luxurious clothes. Compositionally, the painting evokes the influence of classicism more than Brandl's typically exalted artistic expression, but it is nevertheless a grandiose culmination of this unique exhibition. Text and photo: Vladimír Dubeň