The title of the exhibition is a free paraphrase of Josef Čapek’s painting The Cloud, which in 1933 intuitively responded to the approaching danger of war. The first level presents artists and works reflecting the oppressive atmosphere of the time before the outbreak of the conflict itself. The second layer focuses on the period of the Protectorate and explores different artistic approaches, ranging from civil interpretations to the search for lost balance and hope through a return to religious themes. The third level features works by artists who personally experienced the hardships of war. Just as themes intermingle, so do formal principles — from surrealist automatisms to expressive painterly gestures and classicist form.
The exhibition's leitmotif is the landscape, the city, and people. Anxious dreamlike visions of metamorphosis between human and animal are complemented by depictions of violence in the form of symbolic acts, where a threatened woman represents the personification of a tormented republic. Equally frequent is the motif of the landscape — evolving from surrealistically brutal rawness to a strange terrain filled with resignation, poeticism, and melancholy. The city also undergoes a transformation, becoming a place devoid of people — gloomy, abandoned, and often ghostly. From a human perspective, anonymous and fictional situations mix with harsh realities, such as in Josef Čapek’s studies for The Flower Seller, painted while imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Fear, anguish, and astonishment at the loss of humanity and compassion radiate from most of the wartime works, regardless of subject or author.

After the Second World War, the treatment of the war theme in art underwent significant changes, primarily due to the restored possibility of creative freedom. From this perspective, the situation in former Czechoslovakia may seem straightforward. In the past, works and artists were uncritically favored based on their so-called ideological commitment, but today we cannot simply condemn all the art of that time solely because it was created under political diktat.

Art must be free. The main aim of this exhibition is therefore to present a variety of perspectives and artistic approaches by authors reflecting on war, as documented by the collections of the GVUO.

Renata Skřebská

Exhibit authors:

Vystavovaní autoři:
Josef Čapek
Karel Černý
Josef Dobeš
Karel Dvořák
Emil Filla
Vincent Hložník
František Hudeček
František Janoušek
František Jiroudek
Jaroslav Kapec
Josef Liesler
Karel Lidický
Cyprián Majerník
Vincenc Makovský
Bohumír Matal
František Muzika
Helena Salichová
Vladimír Sychra
František Tichý
Václav Tikal
Alois Wachsman
Jindřich Wielgus
Vilém Wünsche
Ladislav Zívr

Exhibition concept: Jiří Jůza, Renata Skřebská
Curator: Renata Skřebská
Texts: Renata Skřebská
Graphic Design: Jiří Šigut - CONCEPT
English translation: Kateřina Naarová
Conservation and preparation of exhibits: Dominika Dworoková
Installation: Dominika Dworoková, Jiří Jůza, Jan Kudrna, Josef Mladějovský, Renata Skřebská, Vladimír Šulc
Educational programmes: Marcela Pelikánová, Jana Sedláková
Promotion: Kateřina Mertha, Kateřina Naarová, Jana Šrubařová