Blue Sky

The glass sculpture Blue Sky, subtitled Cannons (Děla), by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová is a characteristic example of their distinctive approach to glass as an artistic medium. From the late 1950s onwards, they became pioneers of cast glass sculpture. This technique enabled the creation of monumental works with precisely defined edges and complex internal spatial and light-related qualities. Blue Sky, likewise, was created employing this technique and is based on the relationship between a prism and cylindrical forms.

The shapes, reduced to geometric volumes, mediate a fascinating interaction of light and shadow, creating an illusion of depth and shifting colour tones. The work explores the contrast between the stability of a cuboid block and the dynamism of circular forms, which evoke both cannon barrels and optical apertures. A tension thus emerges between the external surface and the interior space, activated by the passage of light and its refraction through coloured glass. The sculpture addresses not only the relationship between fullness and emptiness, but also the perception of depth, as the cylindrical cavities draw the beholder’s gaze into the material itself while simultaneously alluding to the infinite expanse of the blue sky.

The work belongs to the artists’ later creative period, during which their practice increasingly focused on abstract and archetypal forms. It is a refined and technically remarkable glass work that rightfully secured Libenský and Brychtová a foremost position among twentieth-century glass artists, whose work exerted a profound influence not only on Czech studio glass but also on the international development of the medium.

The significance of the work is further enhanced by its inclusion in the monograph Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová by M. Klasová (Prague, 2002, p. 128, fig. 137), and by its presentation at the retrospective exhibition Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová: tvorba z let 1945–1989 [Works from 1945–1989], held at Waldstein Riding School, Prague, from 6 June to 17 September 1989, cat. No. 93 (reproduced in the exhibition catalogue). The work was assessed in consultation with PhDr. K. Srp and P. Zahradník, Jaroslava Brychtová’s grandson. An expert opinion of PhDr. J. Machalický is attached.