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FORUM & ARTICLES
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prague |
2007-03-08 03:04:05 |
| autor: Me |
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Prague in the Middle Ages |
2006-06-21 11:48:36 |
| autor: Magazine Antiques |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has an enviable track record for organizing large shows devoted to the artistic climate of a single place during a single historical epoch. An exhibition devoted to Byzantium comes to mind as one of the more recent ones that successfully challenged the uninitiated to appreciate and understand the topic, much of it completely foreign to modern eyes. This autumn the museum's subject is medieval Prague--a city with a complex and often confusing geographical, political, and religious history, but with an astonishingly beautiful artistic legacy. The show is entitled Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437, and is on view until January 3, 2006. The 160 objects on display include icons, paintings, illuminated manuscripts, goldsmiths' work, sculpture, silk embroideries, and stained glass.
Ironically only in the relatively recent past has Prague emerged from its isolation, whereas in medieval times the city was a cultural beacon visited by artists and craftsmen from all over Europe. The years specified in the exhibition's title span the reigns of Charles IV and his two sons Wenceslas IV and Sigismund. Charles IV, the Holy Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, was responsible for the artistic flowering that took place in his native city of Prague. He initiated extensive building campaigns notable today in some of the city's landmarks: Saint Vitus's Cathedral, the university (the first established east of the Rhine River), the Charles Bridge that crosses the Vltava River and its Old Town Bridge tower, and royal palaces both in Prague and in the countryside. Because Charles set the aesthetic tone for so many years, he is the primary focus of the exhibition and its excellent catalogue.
n 1323 at age seven, Charles, a son of the king of Bohemia and grandson of the Holy Roman emperor, was sent to France, where, for dynastic reasons he was betrothed (for the first of four marriages) to Princess Blanche of Valois, the sister of the future king Philip VI. A mere seven years later his father dispatched him to northern Italy to watch over the family holdings there. It is known that his various travels acquainted him with the architecture of France and artistic currents in northern Italy. The former became a source for building in Prague while the latter had an enduring influence on painting in Bohemia. Indeed, the cathedral in Prague was designed by the French emigre Matthias of Arras, who had been a member of the papal court at Avignon.
Charles's coronation as king of Bohemia in 1347 was the catalyst for transforming Prague into an imperial capital, and during his reign the city became one of the largest in Europe as well as a religious center. Charles's spiritual side is well documented, and not unlike his contemporaries of noble birth, he had a particular penchant for the veneration of saints and relics, which he had enshrined in handsome reliquaries with spectacular gilt mounts embellished with precious stones. He is also known to have been a devoted reader of sacred works including books of hours and other illuminated texts.
By the 1340s the imperial style established by local artists and craftsmen changed, largely because of the royal patronage of foreign artists. The skills they brought with them transformed painting by introducing more realistic representations of the figure and by better conveying light and volume, all of which reached its maturity in the 1360s, and patrons in central Europe looked to Prague for artists and craftsmen to fill their commissions.
Charles's son Wenceslas IV, king of Bohemia, ruled for forty-one years although far less successfully than his father. While he was a political disappointment, he continued the uncompleted architectural and decorative projects of his father, and these were central in the evolution of what is known today as the beautiful style, which prevailed in the years around 1400. This style is characterized by a fondness for surface decoration and ornament, the calligraphic depiction of attributes like hair and drapery, and restraint in the depiction of emotion. Wenceslas was best known for his fondness for strong drink and his mercurial personality, and he was not a scholar or collector on the level of his father. However, along with the church and the aristocracy, Wenceslas continued to patronize artists, craftsmen, and architects, and Prague held onto its position as a leader in the European cultural community.
Sigismund succeeded his brother Wenceslas during politically uncertain times. He became king of Hungary in 1387 through marriage, but he was only king of Bohemia for two short periods, from 1419 to 1420 and 1436 to 1437. In 1433 he was elected Holy Roman emperor. Although he was not interested in art as a youth, the royal palace he built later in Buda was of the highest artistic quality. Its design was drawn from buildings in Siena and Avignon that Sigismund had seen or knew through renderings. While on a trip to Paris he pressed goldsmiths and masons to move to Hungary, but the majority of craftsmen who made the luxurious objects that appealed to him came from German-speaking regions, reflecting a shift away from the influence of France and Italy.
The catalogue of the exhibition is published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press. It may be obtained by telephoning 800-468-7386.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group |
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