františek bílek´s studio. permanent exhibition

František Bílek´s (1872-1941) studio in Villa Bílek is open for visitors; the permanent exposition that introduces the works from his vintage creative period to visitors is placed in another part of the building.

Ambiguousness and ambivalence of the symbolical works forces one to active perception, to attempt to analyse their meaning. For František Bílek´s work this decoding is made more challenging by the author´s complicated thinking and completely original way of phrasing. Without dependence on the previous development of Czech sculpture of the 19th century, he created his own symbolical language based upon dynamic line, sharp shape and emphasis on the meaning of the gesture, in which he connected in a unique way the symbolism of Art Nouveau with Christian and the Oriental spiritual tradition.

Expressiveness and strangeness in that Czech atmosphere, almost in irritating way, affected particularly his early compositions, rose above all from a deep faith in God. Bílek took his creation as a mission to through art “sacrifice to regain one´s brother´s health”, e.g. to serve through his works to advise and to moral edification of humankind. Therefore, in his own houses he created the studios always as the essential space, on the basis of which the other spaces in the building were conceived. Bílek´s works are characteristic by the use of symbolical connections of the natural and spiritual worlds.

There are exhibits of many of his essential works in the studio of Villa Bílek, e.g. Future Conquerors (1931-1937), Grief (1908-1909), Golgotha (1892), How Time Curves Wrinkles (1902), Adam and Eve (1921), Anxiety for the Body, for the Word and for the Canopy of the Heavens (1909), Madonna (1901), Bound (1917), and also very remarkable furniture collection which was made according to his design