Lot 149

František Janoušek (1890 - 1943) PHANTOM

The dramatic, very impressive work is an excellent representative of the author's expressive surrealism from the artist's mature period of creation in the second half of the 1930s. The highly evocative painting, which immediately captivates the viewer with its unbridled energy and urgency, depicts a phantom figure in an indeterminate landscape and time, whose body seems to be formed and eaten by its own ghosts at the same time. Janoušek makes full use of his favorite effective element of connecting the physical with architecture, when he ties a figure, whose mouth is drooling, to a column to which pieces of his own body have been attached. The whole wonderful scene is filled with even more uncertainty by the fact that the column, which is supposed to keep the phantom at bay, grows from a vague, wobbly, almost imaginary foundation, a foundation as uncertain as the difficult pre-war period in which this work was created. Due to the fact that the work is kept in the estate file as unfinished, we have a unique opportunity to follow the artist's inner creative process and at the same time we have enough space available for our own interpretation, for our personal completion of that fatal story. The canvas comes directly from the author's estate. The painting will be published and included in the upcoming list of works in the forthcoming monograph of PhDr. J. She looked out. Assessed by PhDr. R. Michalová, Ph.D., and prof. J. Zemina. Professional expertise conducted by PhDr. K. Srp.