Abstract
Oldřich Blažíček belonged to the generation that asserted itself with the establishment of the First Republic. The year 1918 brought a whole range of representatives of the new social order - artists, architects, painters, sculptors, writers, musicians but also doctors, lawyers or economists and, above all, politicians - who replaced the protagonists of the now disintegrated Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
A new social and cultural elite, brimming with enthusiasm for the ideas of the Republic, was created and quickly gained dominance in all social sectors. It was a rare opportunity indeed, and many talented, ambitious individuals were able to benefit from it.
Oldřich Blažíček was one of them. Like many others of this successful generation, he came from the country and with his diligence and exceptional talent soon penetrated the cultural elite.
His work was successful because it was based on the feelings and needs of the new intelligence. Blažíček's work attracts attention by its wide range of painting types including landscape, still life, flowers, portrait, figural theme and architecture.
His paintings of temple interiors, alongside with landscape art, create the largest part of his work. It is characterized by an abundance of gradients within colour (called "valeurs" in painting) and a brilliant space perspective.
According to the family tradition, Blažíček's extensive work, consisting mainly of oil paintings, drawings and several sculptural portraits of family members, consisted of almost two thousand pieces of art, now scattered across both Czech and foreign state galleries as well as unknown private collections at home and abroad, especially in Vienna and among Czech compatriots in the United States. Our monograph presents over eight hundred paintings with a known owner and over two hundred paintings which have all been exhibited at some point but their current location remains unknown.
Oldřich Blažíček's first ambition was to become a wall painter. From 1906 to 1909 he studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts under professors K.
V. Mašek, J.
Preisler and J. Schikaneder, and from 1909 to 1912 he attended the studio of H.
Schwaiger at the Prague Academy. He travelled extensively: he visited Dubrovnik in 1910, Italy and Dalmatia in 1913, Rügen in 1921, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania in 1924, France in 1925, Spain and Italy in 1927 and Norway in 1930.
In the 1930s he travelled to Carpathian Ruthenia, most often to Jasina and Slovakia where several rustic and urban church interiors could be found in places such as Levoča, Spiš or Kežmarok. However, he mostly dedicated his work to landscape art, showing a preference for the submontane landscapes with wooded hills below Kráľova hoľa in the vicinity of Vernář and Polomka.
His exceptional ability to capture architectural interiors brought Blažíček a professorship in drawing and painting at the College of Architecture at CTU in Prague, which he held between 1921 and 1939. In 1931 he also served there as a dean.
He was a member and a long-time chairman of the Union of Fine Artists (1912-1917 and since 1925), briefly a member of the Mánes Association of Fine Artists (1917-1925), and since 1930 a member of the Moravian Artists' Association. Blažíček's significance lies in capturing the Czech landscape.
Throughout, his life he constantly returned to his native Highlands around Rožná, often to Wallachia and Štramberk and to the Iron Mountains around Slavík and Kraskov. He often visited Prostějovsko in Haná and Čáslavsko in Žehušice.
Blažíček was a plein-air painter. He painted outdoors in all seasons, often in the winter, but preferably in the early spring when the snow had melted.
He was able to quickly - with light, flexible strokes of the brush and a soft coating of paint - express the structure of the displayed region. His landscape art sports a spontaneous manuscript and colourful lyricism of optimistic emotional power.
Blažíček's work also had an international reach. With his panoramic views of Prague and its bridges, paintings of temple interiors and the Czech and Slovak landscape, he drew attention to the beauty of our country not only at home but also abroad and brought joy and optimism to the spectator.