Jan Preisler

Jan Preisler, “Black Lake”, circa 1904, Oil on Canvas, 111 x 153 cm, National Gallery, Prague

Born at the Litavka River town of Králův Dvůr in February of 1872, Jan Preisler was a Czech painter, decorative designer and art professor, a leading figure of Czech Symbolism and early Modernism.

The son of an iron foundry worker, Jan Preisler was educated at a municipal school in Popović. A loner by nature, his early talent at drawing enabled him to receive financial aid for studies in Prague. In 1887 at the age of fifteen, Preisler entered the recently opened School of Applied Arts, now the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design. He studied under Czech painter František Ženíšek, a member of the Generation of the National Theatre.

During his studies at school, Preisler became a member of Prague’s artists’ association, the Mánes Union of Fine Arts, and became one of its journal’s contributors. He created the cover for the 1896 inaugural issue of the Union’s journal “Volné Směry (Free Directions)” and served as the journal’s editor for several years. After graduating, Preisler shared a studio in Malostranská with Karel Špillar, a painter, graphic artist and fellow student under Ženíšek at the School of Applied Arts.

Jan Preisler initially painted in a Neo-Romantic style, a genre that arose in opposition to realism and naturalism, considering those formats to be misleading distortions of reality. As he progressed in his work, Preisler began to use the allegorical approach to symbolism. In the 1890s after studying the works of painters Alfons Mucha and Vojtěch Preissig, he began to experiment with the emerging Art Nouveau style.

Jan Preisler infused his paintings with poetic solitude and dreamlike mystery. The setting of a figure in a landscape is a typical feature of his paintings. In his development of the figure, Preisler’s understanding of that symbol changed from etheric levitating figures with symbolistic poses to their realistic rendering. This change in figural rendering was principally evidenced in the works from his loose “Black Lakes” series. Compact in content, those paintings build their stories from all the individual motifs.

In 1902, Preisler and his artist friend Antonin Gudechek traveled to Italy. In Vienna, he met French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Preisler was the organizer of the 1905 Prague Mánes Society exhibition of Edvard Munch’s works; Preisler designed the poster for this exhibition. He traveled to Paris in 1906, where attended a major retrospective of Paul Gauguin’s work at the Salon d’Automne.

In 1903, Jan Preisler became the teacher of nude painting at Prague’s School of Applied Arts and, later in 1913, was designated Professor of Painting at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. In the period between 1908 and 1918, Preisler was given several public commissions for decorative work at prominent buildings in Prague. Among these were the Palacky Room in the Municipal House of Prague, and mural work for the dining hall of the District House (now Grand Hotel) at Hradec Králové.

Jan Preisler died of pneumonia in April of 1918. He was survived by his wife of four years, Božena Pallas Preisler, and his two children. Preisler was interred in the family vault in Prague.

Notes: In Preisler’s 1904 “Black Lake”, a pale horse stands with a solitary nude figure at the edge of an ominous, dark pool; the scene is an allegory of introspection, nature, and the unconscious. Preisler’s subdued palette and lyrical composition evoke myth and reverie, rooted in both Art Nouveau elegance and Symbolist philosophy. This enigmatic “Black Lake” remains one of Preisler’s most haunting and iconic works.

Top Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Self Portrait with Cigarette”, circa 1900, Oil on Linen, 50 x 45 cm, Galerie Kodl, Prague

Second Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Riders in the Wood”, 1904, Pastel on Paper, 36 x 51 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Portrait of the Artist’s Mother”, Date Unknown, Oil on Board, 39.4 x 33 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Jan Preisler, “Study for Young Beggar”, Date Unknown, Black Pencil and White Chalk on Paper, 28 x 31.5 cm, Private Collection

Artur Grucela

The Paintings of Artur Grucela

Born in 1987, Artur Grucela is a Polish figurative painter whose naturalistic, idyllic landscapes are populated by archetypical, often solitary, male figures caught in moments of introspection. His work explores the primal relationship of man to nature, as well as humanity’s lack of control over natural forces.

Raised in a small town in southern Poland, Grucela began drawing from an early age and became interested in painting during hie elementary school years. Primarily educated outside academic art institutions, Grucela frequently integrates themes from myths, allegories, and biblical symbolism into his work; he also draws upon motifs from art history, film noir productions, and classic literature.

Artur Grucela’s work, executed in either oils or acrylics on canvas, is inspired by the works of such artists as Early Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli; English etcher and painter William Blake: French illustrator and printmaker Gustave Dorè: Swiss Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin; and Franz von Stuck, a German printmaker and painter of ancient mythology.

Grucela has exhibited twice with Miligram, a cooperative of young artists in Wroclaw, the first being the city’s 2009 “Represent” exhibition and, in the following year, the “Dzika Banda (Wild Bunch)” exhibition held at Warsaw. After the Miligram group disbanded, he began showing his work through POCO, the Pop & Contemporary Art Museum, founded in Tallinn by Estonian tech pioneer Linnar Viik.

Artur Grucela has exhibited in POCO’s many group exhibitions and country art fairs, including the 2012 inaugural show at the POCO gallery in Wroclaw and the Agora Cultural Center of Wroclaw in 2013. His paintings were included in the 2024 group show “Mystery Keepers” at Warsaw’s Sotto 63 Gallery and at the 2025 group show “Ethereal” at the Edji Gallery in Brussels.

Grucela currently lives and works in Piwniczna-Zdrój, a popular destination in the Western Carpathian mountain range of southern Poland. His work is contained in many private collections in Poland, Switzerland and the United States. A photo-stream collection of Artur Grucela’s work can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/arturgrucela/

Second Insert Image: Artur Grucela, “Moonlight”, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 90 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Artur Grucela, “In the Eyes of Nature”, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 120 x 90 cm

Paul-Marc-Joseph Chenavard

Paul Chenavard, “Divine Tragedia”, 1865-1869, Oil on Canvas, 400 x 550 cm, Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay), France

Born in December of 1808 in the city of Lyon, Paul-Marc-Joseph Chenavard was a French painter who believed art’s goal was the advancement of society’s welfare and cultural development. A philosopher as well as a painter, he was well read and traveled. Throughout his life, Chenavard maintained a personal connection with both artistic and missionary groups.

Chenavard initially entered the Palais Saint-Pierre, now the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, where he studied alongside painter Joseph Benoit Gulchard, born in Lyon in November of 1806. Chenavard and Gulchard left the Palais in 1824 and took classes under classical sculptor Jean-François Legendre-Héral.

In 1825, Paul Chenavard entered Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts where he studied in the studio of Neo-classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a historical painter best known for his portraits. Gulchard, with the assistance of the painters Paul-Jean and Hippolyte Flandrin, later entered the Paris studio of Ingres in 1827. In that year, Chenavard traveled to Italy where he first encountered the works of Michelangelo and other Renaissance masters.

Chenavard created a relatively small body of distinctively styled work that reflect the influences he encounterd during his trip to Italy. In 1888, he produced a charcoal drawing “The Last Judgement”, a densely packed scene of contorted bodies, horn-blowing angels and the crowned Archangel Michael. At the top of the scene is Christ depicted without the traditional halo, a statement of Chenavard’s humanistic beliefs.

Paul Chenavard also created a large mural design entitled “The Battle Between the Gods of Olympus and the Giants”. The tableau, likely a presentational work, was executed on four sheets with architectural details pasted at the top. Similar in style to “The Last Judgement”, it contains a scene full of figures engaged in battle. Chenavard’s drawings, most likely an allegory of philosophical references, were exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris and are currently housed in Lyon’s Musée des Beaux-Arts.

After the 1848 Revolution, Charles Blanc, the Director of Fine Arts reporting to the Minister of Public Instruction, commissioned a decoraton from Chenavard for the Paris Pantheon, which was to serve as a temple of humanity. For this project, Chenavard designed a mosaic for the main feature which would present an impartial treatment of all religious traditions. However in December of 1851, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte returned the Pantheon back to the authority of the Catholic Church, thus the project was abandoned.

For the 1869 Paris Salon, Paul Chenavard returned to the idea of illustrating religion’s history. He created his “Divine Tragedia” as a counterpoint to Dante Alighieri’s 1308-1321 “The Divine Comedy”. Accompanied with a booklet of commentary, Chenavard’s tableau was met with incomprehension from both the public and critics. It was considered too complex and overly filled with references to multiple philosophical ideas.

Chenavard’s “Divine Tragedia” was purchased by the French government which designated the Musée du Louvre as the responsible organism for the work. Given to the collection of the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, the tableau was only exhibited for a short time until the museum’s 1974 exhibition. The “Divine Tragedia” was housed at the Louvre from 1974 to 1986, at which time it was added to the collection of the Musée d’Orsay.

Paul-Marc-Joseph Chenavard died in Paris in 1895 at the age of eighty-seven. His body in interred at the new Cimetière de Loyasee at Lyon.

Top Insert Image: Portrait of Paul Chenavard from Édouard Baldus’s “Histoire de Artisted Vivants”, 1852, Albumen Print from Wet Collodion Negative, 17.6 x 13.2 cm, Alma Kroeger Fund