Lot 130

Emil Filla (1882 - 1953) HORSE FIGHTING A LION

This work is part of the "Fights and Battles" series that Filla worked on in 1936–39. The series follows two lines of meaning: it concerns antique mythology, and it looks at fights as a problem of good versus evil, the battle of the weak against the strong, the powerful and the powerless. Similar themes are addressed by Vincenc Kramař in his extensive unpublished text "Fillovy Boje a zápasy" from 1947, which is in the archives of the Czech Academy of Science's Institute of Art History. It places the theme into the context of political developments in neighboring Germany following the election of Hitler as Chancellor, and sees contexts with Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War. From an artistic perspective, the work can be characterized as a study of the dynamic movement of mass.