Lot 75

František Bílek (1872 - 1941) ASTONISHMENT

The exceptional sculpture of the famous Czech symbolist artist František Bílek coexists with the multilayered and evolving idea of his spiritual work. It is a smaller analogous variant to the larger-than-life sculpture in stained beech from 1907, which is in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague. Most of his reflections on the relationship between decadence and religion are based on the work of Charles Baudelaire. His approach entailed a journey of dialogue and questioning; his challenge was the Christian God in the time of loss of certainty that the turn of the century represented. The motif of wonder in the present sculpture can be seen as a parallel interpretation of wonder as the first of the human passions. This emotion, in the field of the author's lived time of ongoing secularization and technological change, had a dual character - amazement both religious and purely secular, which is reflected here in the return to the same theme after the (indiscernible) experiences of the First World War.