Emil Filla - SKETCHLINE

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1882 - 1953

Emil Filla

description

Czech teacher, graphic artist and sculptor, one of the largest and brightest representatives of Cubism in his country. The editor of art magazines and an art theorist. Having survived concentration camps, after World War II, he became the first author whose personal exhibition was organized by the official Association of Czech Artists. Filla was engaged in teaching activities, but could not participate in exhibitions, because his works did not belong to Socialist realism. In co-authorship with Otto Guthfreind, the Czech artist created Cubist sculptures, considered to be the very first in the history of fine art. Later he applied this style in decorative and applied art, including painting on glass.

Although Cubist architecture became a real phenomenon in the Czech Republic, thanks to the work of such masters as Emil Filla, the legacy in painting became a significant and important part of the European contemporary art. The artist left a significant creative legacy, including a large number of theoretical essays on art. In 1998, he was posthumously awarded The Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk of the 3rd degree for his services to the country.

Key ideas:

– In the works of Emil Filla of his early period, the combination of German expressionism and the trends of emerging Cubism is clearly traced. Constant searches led to the inconsistency of the artist’s own manner. Specialists define his style as Cubo-Expressionism with the obvious influence of El Greco, the artist of the Spanish Baroque era.

– Later, a growing number of paintings were created in absolutely cubistic frameworks. Those were mostly still lifes with a variety of unusual combinations of different objects.

– Elements of the collage were sometimes used in still lifes: fragments of newspaper pages or labels were placed next to the oil paint on the plane. Thus, Filla developed the genre of art installation. However, the artist did not refuse from figurative painting with deep philosophical content and portraits with psychological overtones (“Smoker”, “Woman”).

– The main direction of his mature works was the desire to split objects into geometricized conditional forms to show the depicted object from different angles. Filla considered works composed of cubic figures richer in impressions for the viewer and more expressive.

– In the 1920s, the master developed his version of Synthetic Cubism, and later used some techniques of surreal painting, but did not become a surrealist.

– In response to the spread of fascism, being inspired by the Scythian reliefs, the artist created some paintings in the 1930s. He depicted the battle of a man with wild beasts or fierce battles between different animals in various techniques.

Emil Filla

On Artist

flow

Impressionism

Fauvism

Expressionism

Cubism

Baroque

Art Deco

friends

Otto Gutfreind

artists

Edvard Munch

Vincent van Gogh

Pablo Picasso

Georges Braque

El Greco

Pierre Bonnard

Juan Gris

By Artist

flow

Kuboekspressionizm

friends

Josef Capek

artists

Vincent Benes

Pavel Yanak

Oto Gutfreind

Milos Reindl

Antonin Prochazka

description

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

1948

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

1930

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

1924

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: Museum of Fine Arts of Chichester, West Sussex, the United Kingdom.

1920

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Mediums: oil, sand, canvas. Location: private collection.

1915

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Mediums: watercolor, ink, paper. Location: private collection.

1914

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The People's Gallery of Prague, Czech Republic.

1912

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.

1911

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The People's Gallery of Prague, Czech Republic.

1911

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Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The People's Gallery of Prague, Czech Republic.

1907