Flowering Meadow

Josef Čapek’s Flowering Meadow is an important example of a work rediscovered almost a century after its exhibition at the artists’ club Umělecká beseda. It is a poetic painting from his climactic final period when he aimed to depict a world distinct from mid-1930s European society through the themes of childhood and simple, rural life. The work is part of a series of oil paintings inspired by the landscape of the Orava region, which Čapek regularly visited with his family beginning in 1930. Spending a summer in Oravský Podzámok, he was enchanted by an environment largely untouched by modern civilisation. In his works, he transforms inspirations drawn from everyday rural life into deeply existential scenes emphasising fundamental human values, which are also represented metaphorically in this canvas. Two children play in a flowering meadow, carelessly picking flowers. The figure of a woman in a blue skirt and apron standing with her back turned and holding a bouquet of white flowers in her hands anticipates the artist’s final cycle of female figures titled Desire (Touha). With their dreamy and averted gaze, they offer a melancholy reflection on the nation’s despair and faith in a better future. The deeper meaning of the scene is supported by the joyful colours of the painting. On the listed canvas, these still include pastel pinks, greens and blues, though in subsequent works they transform into the hues of the Czech tricolour in an expression of symbolic concern for the fate of the nation. Here the artist has employed his characteristic painting style of visibly short brush strokes to create a sense of playfulness and simplicity. Despite the apparent poetic naïveté of the depicted scene, Čapek was very well-orientated in the art of the time and familiar with the strong position of Surrealism, even writing art criticism of the movement. Still, he consciously went against the grain of the modernist movements; his free approach to creation excluded adherence to any artistic program. He remained faithful to the principles of primitive art and emphasised the independence of a personal stance, which he placed above the progressivity of collective movements. Flowering Meadow thus not only depicts the beauty of the Czech landscape but contains a deeper, symbolic dimension – it is an expression of joy, national identity, and the values of rural life, which Čapek valued enormously: “Before me stretches a landscape illuminated by the sun – lovely, comforting, the most beautiful – composed with a loving simplicity from all the joyful landscapes I have known in this world. With figures of reapers, women picking strawberries, hunters, fishermen, and dear children frolicking and playing in the doorways” (J. Čapek: Kulhavý poutník [The Hobbled Pilgrim], Prague 1936, p. 20). The collector’s value of the work is increased by its presentation at an exhibition to support national self-awareness held at Umělecká beseda on the eve of World War II (The Czech territory – Paintings from 1920 – 1939, Municipal House, Prague, November–December 1938, cat. no. 83) and inclusion in an inventory of Čapek’s artworks (P. Pečinková: Pracoval jsem mnoho, díl třetí: Malba [I Worked a Lot, Volume Three: Painting], Humpolec 2023, p. 642, cat. no. III/478). Assessed in consultation with J. Zemina and PhDr. R. Michalová, PhD. The expert option of PhDr. P. Pečinková, CSc. is attached: “[...] This painting is part of a large group of Čapek’s oils from his so-called Orava phase. In the early 1930s, Čapek’s work went through an important internal transformation connected to a deep preoccupation with life and nature in the Oravský Podzámok area, which he regularly visited on holiday with his family. Essentially, he drew the motifs for most of his paintings and drawings from the Orava countryside for the rest of his life. [...].”