Lot 151

Jan Bauch (1898 - 1995) TOTALIARIANISM

The period of the work's creation and the period immediately preceding it was not an uplifting one for Jan Bauch. The promoters of socialist realism imposed on the public an art that was understandable and uplifting and that would correspond to ideological demands. Jan Bauch recalls the period when he could not exhibit: "I had a bad time. When I left my apartment to go to work, there was already an secret police waiting in the street and he walked me to the studio, where another one was standing and smiling. They never did anything to me, they didn't beat me up or arrest me, but one didn't exactly have uplifting thoughts while working." Jan Bauch's art absorbed this challenge and manifested the inner struggles quite faithfully. Blindly following the idyllic world was considered by Jan Bauch to be cowardice and humanity, and he saw the quality of the spirit in the fact that while the ordinary person can remain silent about the "clamour of the world" and wallow in laxity, the role of the artist is to unsettle, to speak out against threats to values and to fight.