Josef Mánes again in Moravia

Josef Mánes, In the Summer (The Red Umbrella), 1855, private collection, long-term loan to the National Gallery in Prague

“For Moravia, for Moravia / my heart yearns. To Bohemia, to Bohemia / let me go, gods…” is an excerpt from a poem that Josef Mánes composed as a gift for Count Auguste Alexander Silva Tarouc and his wife Isabella Sofia, his hosts at the castle in Bohemia pod Kosířem. However, friendly ties were only one of the reasons why Mánes became so attached to Moravia and returned here repeatedly.

He made his first trip to the Moravian and Silesian countryside as early as 1846, and three years later he was sent to the Kroměříž Congress by the Artists’ Union of Creative Artists. Moravia enchanted Mánes with its natural and folkloric richness and became a “second home” for him, providing not only inspiration for his work but also relief in times of psychological crises. In addition to Bohemia pod Kosířem, Blansko also became his base for travelling to the surrounding area. From his trips, he always brought back many drawing studies of folk costumes and nature, which he often further processed. He was one of the first artists to turn his steps in this direction in the middle of the 19th century.

Moravian inspiration plays one of the key roles in Josef Mánes’ extraordinarily rich and genre-diverse work. His “return” to Moravia should therefore commemorate both the important personality of Czech art and the context in which his work was created.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)