Below, here is a link to a statue in the Vysehrad cemetary that I find startlingly beautiful: http://tinyurl.com/67wqe5 Take a guess how much information is available on that statue in English? That's right, NONE! So someone here who knows the place can really become my very best friend if they know anything at all about who that woman is, or who she guards in the ground, or who the artist is responsible for her. I am a connoisseur of cemetaries. This one looke magnificent. Thanks as always.
Your link is corrupted. As long as I can decipher it, you mean this statue: It's definitely Olbram Zoubek's work. Not exactly my cup of tea. All his statues seems to be identical to me. Just look at this one: See also: Open-Air Olbram Zoubek Exhibition at Ovocný Trh Memorial to the Victims of Communism
You get stuff figured out quickly, sir. Sorry about the link. And you're certainly allowed your own cup of tea. This is a huge help. Thank you.
I'm ashamed to say that despite several visits to Vyšehrad, I've never noticed it. Next time I go, I'll see what it says.
Check out the links Wer posted- I think he's amazing. I just wonder who is buried right by her. Look at that work around the feet- amazing skill to ground something like that. I think it's wonderful that CZ acknowledges and respects modern art as well as the ancient beauty surrounding it. There's a Cubist lamp-post in Prague for goodness sakes- where else could there possibly be anything like that? Please report back if you remember to do so on your trip to Vysehrad.
Well, it was not difficult to identify the work of this well-known sculptor. He became famous for casting the death mask of Jan Palach and profited of it after the Velvet Revolution. In the 90's his works spread in the whole country including a lot of state institutions (The Castle, Central Bank...). I'm not sure whose grave it is, but I googled there are three works of Olbram Zoubek at Slavín Cemetery. A sculpture at the grave of Josef Vavroušek (1944 - 1995, ecologist and politician), a sculpture of a woman at the grave of Vlastimil Fišar (1926 - 1991, actor) and a stela at the grave of Jiří Adamíra (1926 - 1993, actor). So I guess it's the grave of Vlastimil Fišar. BTW, the word "sculpture" above made me think what's the English meaning of it. In Czech we use "skulptura" (= sculpture) only for the statues made by reducing the material. So, is it fine to use the word "sculptor" for somebody like Zoubek who is engaged only in plastic arts?
That is a good question. I'm american and I'm not even sure of the answer. I think the basic idea of sculptor would be someone who takes hammer and chisel to stone, or some other hard material. I think for bronze and other metals, they take casts....pour molten metal into preformed casts. I suppose they could do that for plastic, not sure, but it doesn't sound right. Whether these artisans can really be classified as sculptors, someone else might know. In a nearby museum there is a large bronze figure of Michalangelo's David. I think it would correctly be classified as a bronze cast, rather than a sculpture. Maybe it is, a bronze cast of an original stone sculpture. I think this is the most likely.
There's a word for it in the art world, I'm sure, but I can't think of it for the minute. I think installation artist is someone who does installations, obviously, like Tracey Emin. Will have a think.
I would consider it a sculpture. I took a scultpure class in high school and we worked with many materials including clay, wire, plastics, etc. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the noun sculpture as "The art or practice of shaping figures or designs in the round or in relief, as by chiseling marble, modeling clay, or casting in metal, or A work of art created by sculpture" and the verb sculpture as "To fashion (stone, bronze, or wood, for example) into a three-dimensional figure." I would probably call almost anything sculpture that is three dimensional art and is largely manipulated rather than assembled like found art is... but I'm no art critic, so who knows.
Yes, I think you're probably right. I can't think of a separate word. But is there a different word in Czech, wer?
In Czech we have a general word "socha" which could be either "skulptura" or "plastika". The artist is always "sochař". Maybe we tend to use "skulptura" and "plastika" as technical terms, because both are loanwords for us.
